I wrote the last post after being so affected by the contrast between holiday tourist traffic and the total isolation I had just enjoyed on a mountain bike ride, earlier in the morning. If uncrowdedness were so great, why doesn't everybody avail themselves of it? I suppose it is just human nature to go where everybody else does, by chasing brown signs put up by the forest service, park service, and BLM. It seems undesirable to think for themselves. But the mass-tourist would probably n ot agree with that. They would argue that crowded places are crowded because they are more beautiful than the average place. If you then asked him, "What is beauty?', he would think you are being silly or argumentative, since beauty is "obvious." He means anything that is BIG, vertical, or freakish. Although few tourists would consider the location of my morning mountain bike ride to be ugly, t hey would think it less entertaining than where they were. But I was quite ent
Early retirement, mainstream-media-free, bicycling, classic books & history, RV camping, and dogs.