Occupation of Independence

 No matter how many times you go through the transition from summer to autumn, it still seems too good to be true, for the good sleeping weather on top of everything else.     Looking back on summer, let's pat ourselves on the back for doing some things right, such as getting better at using wet washcloths or spray to keep oneself and the dog cooler in the worst part of summer.   Another great help has been accepting that the western states have two summers: early summer and late summer, and that these two seasons are very different from each other.  Therefore you must arrive in the inland northwest in late April rather than early June. Early summer above the Salmon River trench.  A bit of rain, greenery, and cool weather.  Thirdly, mediocre altitudes can seem discouraging in the inland northwest.  But if you camp in shade thicker than ponderosa forests,  you can cool you off by 5 degrees Fahrenheit.  I used to under-value this...

 I would turn myself over to a qualified therapist if I knew the right specialty for somebody who has become too easy to please, and too appreciative of humble pleasures.  I have even become too easily amused, by bovine-Americans of all things! The forest was 8000 feet in altitude and had 100 yard wide firebreaks on the side of the dirt roads.  That means no trees, but good grasses and flowers for grazing.  This guy was quite a looker, and he had an appreciative harem:    The cow in front had a cowbell on that made me think of a late RV blogger whose German surname meant cowbell. ( treichel )  Fortunately the cow gave me something more cheerful to think about.  She had such a bossy, busybody-ish attitude.  She kept staring at me and demanding that I get permission from her for everything.  She was amusing. Cows do not always act 'dumber than a bag of rocks.'  Mother cows sometimes act surprisingly protective around their offsprin...

Does the hegemony of You Tube in "information space" almost make you think the written word is obsolete?  I have mixed feelings about that.  Maybe I would mourn for the written word if writers weren't so long-winded.  And spelling was phonetic .  Hell, if they even began making it phonetic, starting with the letter c. But what about still photography ?  (What a sad term!)  Everything has to be video these days, even when there are only talking heads in the video.  Even when there is motion, it is usually rather uninteresting.  Think of all the travel videos shot through the windshield of a car.  Is that supposed to be exciting?  Or the hikers plodding and trodding down a trail. The truth is that most videos are just 'chewing gum for the eyes.'  But photographs are something that I will miss.  It is one of my stump speeches on this blog to praise photographs as visual metaphors , while mocking postcards . And yet, stopping to ...

I was looking to cut my drive in half today.  So I found a shaded side road, and was careful not to pull the trailer further into this unknown road, since I wasn't certain about turning around. Surprisingly a sign said this was the official Lewis and Clark Trail.  My maps didn't even say that there was one.  Nearby, a nice (walkable) bridge crossed a tributary stream.  And there was another official sign.   In grade school, everybody heard about the Lewis and Clark Voyage of Discovery.  I don't remember it seeming very interesting.  But it should have been.  Think how little support and infrastructure they had to lean on!  It isn't surprising that a school kid couldn't put himself in Lewis and Clark's shoes. Along the dirt road, there was a cluster of gigantic trees, over 2 feet in diameter, with remarkable bark.  These were the best trees of the summer, for me.  How old is a tree of this diameter?  Was it alive 220 years ago,...