Occupation of Independence

With every passing year, I find it easier to admire people for various activities and skills, while at the same time, feeling no desire to emulate them.  Mountaineering is a good example of that.   One mountaineering writer -- perhaps it was Jon Krakauer -- was asked what he did when bad weather set in, trapping him in a tent for a couple days.  He said he picked a lot of lint out of all the velcro in his equipment and clothing. With that advice in mind, what should a camper do when it rains and he fears muddy roads ?   Step one is to move towards town, pavement, and shopping.  Step two: go to an actual laundromat and stuff your big things into one of their larger machines.  The next step is something I really went crazy with, today. Your storage and organization of equipment tends naturally towards maximum entropy every day.  It adds up, over time.  After all that time of putting it off, I finally went crazy organizing nuts, bolts,...

 Recently I had another look at Barbara Tuchman's "March of Folly."  It was interesting, but the book was written a few decades ago and needs a Rev. 2.0 update.  The update should be called "The March of Suicide." 'Folly' is just too mild a word for what is happening these days.  Never before in my lifetime have I seen several important countries attempting suicide, at the same time.  There have been some remarkable examples of attempted and successful suicide in the past: 1. Jewish stubbornness and provocation of the Roman Empire , ending in the destruction of Jerusalem. 2. The refusal to surrender by some cities in central Asia after getting an ultimatum from Genghis Khan . 3. Napoleon's unnecessary invasion of Russia in 1812 . 4. Britain's unnecessary involvement in World War I . 5. The Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s. 6. The Ukrainian people allowing "their" (post-elected-term) government to continue a lost war agains...

 Given the forecast of more rain, it made sense to hang around in town on paved roads for another day or two.  But I ended up shopping too much, and that is nerve-wracking.  So I headed out to a favorite area in central Utah :    Maybe I would get lucky with the mud.  The sky was fairly bright, actually, so I was optimistic.  But when you see tire ruts in the dirt road ahead, you know you are in trouble. There were hardly any puddles, so the road didn't seem  that wet.  So why was I losing traction and fishtailing on a flat road?    The traction control system lit up the dashboard like a Christmas tree.  It would then shut down the throttle, which is annoying to a driver.  I did better with the damned thing turned off.  I really should have let some air out of the tires.  Trying to get the van tires over the most gravelly part of the road did more good than anything.  What an utterly perverse surface!...

As a reminder, comments are no longer moderated on this blog, so your comments will appear immediately.  We do not mention specific locations.  Once again I want to praise Pacific hurricanes to the sky.  Despite being so far inland, Central Utah felt the most recent one (Rachel) to smack southern California and northern Baja.  I got a reminder of how much care a camper needs to use to stay out of the mud.  It is ironic: when rain finally comes to this gawdforsaken wasteland, I go into a mild panic instead of enjoying it as much as it should be enjoyed. Clothing is important.  Rubberized boots certainly help.  And rainsuits (jacket and pants) with the all-important property of the pants slipping on and off over shoes.  Even something as simple as a baseball hat helps, since it keeps rain off you face and eyeglasses. It happens so rarely that I am 'out of shape' when it comes to the flexibility that rain requires.  A momentary break in the rai...