Occupation of Independence

 What makes for a perfect campsite?  This seems like an obvious question, but it really isn't.  It seems obvious that there should be a magnificent view from your front door.  That is how You Tube videos show 'breathtakingly beautiful' campsites.  But remember that those videos are selling a fantasy to armchair travelers who think like scenery tourists or vacationers.  Or they think like bougie suburbanites who want a campsite with 'high property value.' I bumbled onto such a campsite today as my little sweetheart and I biked up towards the bigger mountains in central Nevada .  And at first I considered relocating camp to this site.  But on second thought, it was not a good idea. This superficially perfect campsite was too close to the upper end of the dead-end dirt road.  So it would force me to start   out-and-back rides by going downhill.  Yuk! A particularly pretty campsite is too likely to attract 'customers', and that is t...

 Does anyone in the world actually sympathize with Saudi Arabia?  I wonder if it is the third most despised regime on the planet.  (You can easily guess who #1 and #2 are.) It is hard to imagine the regime changing in Saudi Arabia.  What would it change to? I was watching the movie, "Michael Collins" last night and somebody said something quite striking.  He said that Collins was the leader that the times demanded.   The times certainly demands such a leader now, but it is hard to imagine that happening in the US, Europe, or southwest Asia.  Yes, the Democrats will do well in the mid-term elections.  But that party is not capable of coming up with anybody of use.  Europe has no hope whatsoever.  The only believable thing I can imagine happening is a sudden health problem for the American president.  Let him go the way of Lindsay Graham. 

 How can Iran and Yemen's Ansar Allah have such great success against the American Empire despite their tiny budgets?  Will the wastefulness of the US military-industrial complex even get mentioned in the upcoming elections? My instant reaction to the astonishing success of Ansar Allah (and comrades in Iraq, apparently) was pure schadenfreude for the Trump-anyahu regime.  Most people on planet Earth must have had the same reaction.  The town of Mocha had its 15 minutes of fame in the headlines.  It was fun to read about the history of the coffee trade when Mocha was the center of it.  It made sense to celebrate the humiliation of Trumpanyahu by going to a coffee shop and buying a 'mocha.'  I've never had one before. from old.goodreads.com  But then I talked myself out of it:  it would be expensive and instead of adding real chocolate, they would probably use some weird syrup with no chemical relationship to real chocolate. 

 What is the best pleasure of autumn?  If your answer is "fall colors", you probably shouldn't become a full-time RVer.  The  greatest pleasure is sleeping in a cool bed.  Number 2 might be wearing shoes instead of sandals.  I actually had to pull out the winter sleeping bag for a couple nights.  I love burrowing underneath it.   It put me in such a good mood that I even willingly camped in a place where there would be neighbors.  Without any facetiousness, I even smiled at 430 am when my neighbors started making the usual noises about waking up.  Isn't that strange? They weren't normal campers.  They had an activity that thoroughly engrossed them.  They were hunting bears (or maybe cats) with these hounds.     Hounds are not the breed I would choose as pets, but there is no doubt that hunters and their hounds love the skill and training needed for a successful bear hunt.  Such persistence and enthusias...