Occupation of Independence

Central Utah.  How could any place on planet Earth be as lifeless and plant-free as this place?  Even somebody who has previously visited rocky and barren places in the Southwest can't help but ask this.  But it can make for some interesting photos if the sunlight is low in the sky or if clouds help by making shadows. No trees, no grass.  Just a few scrubby bushes with a sickly grey yellow color. But this isn't the hottest and dryest land in the Southwest.  The geology must have something to do with the lack of vegetation. But a person can learn to enjoy the "negative beauty of tragic tones", as Thomas Hardy would put it.  But in small doses!  You wouldn't want to see too many months of this. I usually descend to the lower elevations of this area, near the Green and Colorado Rivers, during the Thermal Collapse of late October.  Typically some rain happens.  And all this rock can make you appreciate that you are not stuck in mud.  I sometimes forget that winter is

 Despite the warm autumn weather I have made it down into central Utah.  It certainly is the kind of place that keeps photographers happy. But I found something more interesting than the scenery.  Once again, consider the hunters.  They are not really finding food in an economical way: for what they are spending on their sport they could buy an awful lot of food at the grocery store.   But they must have enough perspicuity to find satisfaction in connecting with something fundamental in life.  Our species didn't come into existence a couple hundred thousand years ago as scenery tourists.  They hunted and gathered for a living.  What about me, today?  Could I connect with something fundamental?  How would I find food here? I noticed a thick carpet of pinyon pine cones on the ground, and felt embarrassed that I knew nothing about the timing of pine nut production.  Then, a few steps from my camper, I found some cones still on the tree, and with the pine nuts still hanging on. Perhaps

Although I have not hunted since high school, the hunters driving by camp at 0530 are my soulmates, in a sense.  And it is a nice feeling.  Who else besides hunters gets going early in the morning?  The typical camper shows no sign of life until 10 a.m., an unconscionable sin. But hunters are good for something else: their example might correct me on what I said in the last post.  It isn't right to argue that 99.9999% of the pixels in your viewscape are motionless, therefore motion is unimportant.  In fact, the tiny minority of moving pixels is vitally important.  Just ask the hunters or predators! There was quite a bit of inbound traffic on evening.  Somebody explained to me that another hunting season was starting.  They didn't have to tell me. The tiniest flick of ear or tail is noticeable in a landscape of stationary pixels.  That works for prey as well as predators.  Deer act so alert and intelligent at the beginning of hunting season that they are almost funny.  T hey let

It really seems like the travel blog is dying these days.  I hope it survives.  All mediums have their pro-s and con-s.  The advantages of a text-and-photo blog are considerable.  The blog is of course being replaced by You Tube videos which really don't have great advantages.   So why are these videos so popular?  Isn't it because it reminds people of watching the boob tube?  There is remarkably little content in most travel videos.  They are really just "chewing gum for the eyes," as the old saying goes.   Inevitably they migrate towards the "adventurer" cooking in their van or just outside it.  Is there something fascinating about boiling water in a pan in a van that deserves 20,347 views and 357 comments?  This makes a bit of sense if the adventurer is a pretty and personable young woman, wearing skimpy clothing, while swishing her tail at the stove.  But really! Mountains don't move.  Neither do forests or lakes.  So what is the point of taking 

You don't camp on the edge of a mesa or near a cliff if you like calmness.  And yet it has been remarkably calm during the day.  The wind comes back for revenge in the middle of the night.   Strange. High winds make it difficult to sleep, not so much because of the rock-and-rolling, but for the noise.  Anti-noise headphones help a lot.  I have never used the headphones for that purpose before.  They work! It feels silly to have spent so much for the headphones and then hold them back "in reserve,"   rather than actually putting them to use.  But that is exactly what I have done.  Bicyclists can be familiar with this syndrome: they might struggle up a hill but resist using their lowest gear.

It is easy to see why a lost dog would affect a dog-owner so much: we have gone through the temporary loss of our own dog once or twice.  But I was really affected by two beautiful dogs that were loose on the edge of a high plateau in northern Utah.   They were fairly friendly, but wouldn't let me come up and read a phone number on their tag or collar.  They didn't really want water from my bottle, but that isn't too surprising considering all the ponds in the area.  They weren't in any immediate danger.   In fact they were full of youthful vitality.  They were enjoying their romp together.  Their adventure and freedom.  Despite expressing 'danger' in one sense of the word, these two dogs were advertisements for the idea that 'life isn't about Meaning, it is about Desire.'  I made a call to Animal Control but don't know what happened after that.  I suspect the dogs belonged to a hunter or camper in the area, and that they 'turned themselves i

It is strange how a person can skip visiting certain areas, year after after, despite being close to them and saying that they really want to get there "next time."  I have said that when camping in northern Utah on the edge of a plateau 3000 feet above town.  A couple miles from my usual campsite, a small copse of aspen seems to hang near the edge of the plateau.  Something about it is so alluring.  There is a small, fine rectangle around that copse in the top middle of this photo: The copse has always seemed so desirable, so noble and pure, and yet so unapproachable. I have yearned for it like a knight in the Middle Ages romanticizing getting to Jerusalem or meeting a beautiful damsel, unapproachable behind the high walls of her castle.   The scalloped walls of the intervening canyon can be seen as dragon's teeth that make the approach impossible.  But the copse was approachable on another road.  Somebody said the road was rough but in fact it was an easy road.  I was d

I praise Caitlin Johnstone for her persistent and vicious criticism of Israel.   But words are not sufficient.  Signing up at the link will bring her articles to your email.  Then you can either read them or click on the sound arrow if you prefer to hear her words. But there is another way to "hear" Johnstone.  By luck I was watching DVDs of "The Last Kingdom," the TV show made of Bernard Cornwell's "Saxon Tales".  It is the story of Alfred the Great and his offspring fighting off the Danes around year 900. The theme music is wild, barbaric, female wailing by Eivor, a woman from the Faroe Islands.  I just love her wailing.  It is impossible to hear her without immediately slipping into the mood of the show, much of which is vicious swordplay.   Live performances never sound quite as good as studio recordings, but the You Tube link is fun to hear. Bingo!  Something about the ferocity of her voice reminds me of Caitlin Johnstone's 'poison pen.

  It is the quiet season.  Hunting season.  That is a bit ironic, isn't it? I started my annual invasion of Utah a couple weeks early this year.  It was quite a surprise to see so many hunters.  A couple of them explained that a change in the legal hunting season this year has resulted in more elk hunters. I never hear any guns during hunting season.  Just think of all the equipment these guys own, the fees, and all the trouble they go to; and apparently, most of them never get a shot off. Maybe they see hunting season as just an excuse to drive around in their side-by-sides in cool refreshing weather, camp with the boys, and escape the women-folk for a few days. It can be enjoyable to be exposed to the culture and comradery of sports that you know nothing about it.  I have experienced this with mule-handlers and long-distance horse riders.  Even hang gliders, a couple times.  I wish it happened more often.  Fly fishing culture interests me; identifying  animal tracks; learning sur

I am not used to weather.  In the interior West there isn't much weather -- not like, say, the Gulf Coast.  Rainstorms have become a distant memory to me. That is why it was so shocking to get hit by a thunderous hailstorm at 5 a.m.  The aluminum skin of a cargo trailer makes the hail sound terrible, but a third-of-an-inch-diameter hail does not actually do damage.  It accumulated on the ground to a depth of one inch. Then the sky would crack open for awhile.  An hour later we would get blasted again.      I felt rather exposed to lightning, near the edge of a mesa 3000 feet above town level. I had been careful to camp on a gravelled road -- not a mere dirt road.  So escape was possible.   This experience only happens a couple times per year.  It is easy to walk around, dodging mud puddles, and feel a healthy-mindedness about the sun.  A lovely appreciation of the sun.

Why did it take so many years to learn how to warm up in the morning, after camping through a chilly night?  Shrugging the neck and shoulders works wonders.  I have already done that a few times this autumn. Consider this humble accomplishment as encouragement to find other ways to improve winter camping.  What else have I overlooked?  Every autumn I talk tough about camping in cooler locations in order to avoid the overcrowded camping locations in the Southwest that are known to everybody.  And then I surrender to the inevitable: the same old places, with a van every 50 feet slamming their door 50 times a day; or a giant 5th wheel trailer, with its Harbor Freight 6 Kilowatt generator roaring away.  Gawd, I hate neighbors when camping. Every winter, the superb weather of the lower Southwest grabs me.  It is still possible to find camping that is tolerable, if not exactly inspiring. At least I have surrendered on a reluctance to use propane heat.  A Mr. Buddy heater works well enough. A

It must be a real disappointment to most new RVers to see how suddenly the world snaps from hot to cold.  Most people probably fantasize about moving their wheeled house to make autumn last for a couple months.  They would like to think the perfect temperature can be dialed-in by moving their RV 100 miles at a time. But planet Earth doesn't work like that.  I was astonished by that fact during my first winter of RVing, and it still disappoints me, after all these years.  Currently I am surrendering on my planned slow-migration southeast to the Green River and then south along it.   In the West a slow migration south is undermined even more by the higher altitudes you find along the way. Can lemonade be made from these lemons?  Perhaps not -- if practical travel plans alone are considered.  But a general can lose a battle and still hope to win the war.  Tactical versus strategic.  Short term versus long term. Analogous to that, travel can be looked at on a philosophical level, rathe

  Caitlin Johnstone has been on fire lately, making fun of the seriousness the presidential election is regarded with.  She doesn't see the big deal about whether America becomes the enabler of genocide in Gaza with a MAGA hat on, or whether it goes on as the enabler of genocide with a rainbow flag.  She is right.  All this election will settle is who the next Zionist-in-Chief will be. What if there were a candidate who described Israel as 'Satan's chosen people?'  Would that be considered hate speech?  Indeed, it  is  -- against Satan. No matter who the new president is, America will drown in debt, suffer years of high inflation, and fight wars around the world in the name of 'freedom and democracy,' as it becomes less free and democratic every day. Is that too pessimistic?  When a country as prominent and large as the USA can only produce candidates like these two fools, how can anything be too pessimistic?

There is nothing like being up to my old tricks.    High altitude hills, covered by sagebrush and grass.  Close to forested mountains, but not too close.   My eyes always go to the copses of trees that grow island-like in the sagebrush and grass.    Many times the copses sit on the north side of a hill or in gullies.   The trees are stunted and not too healthy looking.  One of the reasons to look forward to September is that it is cool enough to camp on these sunny lands: I suppose the appeal of this land is the same appeal as shorelines and islands at sea.  It is the complex and surprising geometries that are fun to look at.  A uniform, straight-line coast is rather boring, as are completely treeless plains or thick, monotonous forests.

You hear people talk about Route 66 or US50.  Those highways are OK.  But it is US30 that I really love.  In southeastern ID and southwestern WY, US30 overlaps with the Oregon Trail.  There is something about the lay of the land that I love. There are lots of mountains nearby, but who cares?  Mountains are barriers to travel.  In this racket, we are not interested in obstructing travel and freedom.  This is especially true for somebody who pedals a mountain bike and pulls a trailer.  The magic of this land is that it   exudes passage and freedom -- that is, transportation and movement.  I want to pedal without losing traction or going over the handlebars.  I want to level my trailer in less than twenty minutes.  It is funny how practical issues can insinuate themselves into a person's notion of beauty. A railroad goes through this land, as you would expect.  I am camped about three miles from the railroad and enjoy its sound.   There are decomposed wooden farmsteads in this area. 

The inland Northwest is no prize when the smoke season starts.  I have yet to deliver on my promise to abandon it when smoke dominates life.  That may happen today. It is true that a person can develop a tolerance for smoke from forest fires.  Yesterday the smoke was quite bad.  Then a dry thunderstorm blew up.  After an hour the sun came back out. And the sky was clean and blue!  How could that pall disappear so quickly?  I was impressed.  Still, it might be time to head southeast today, being careful to stay clear of Yellowstone.   It is over 50 miles to the nearest grocery store from Leadore, ID.  How do people live around here?  Do they drive to Salmon once a month and load up on canned vegetables, beans, and rice?

The last national holiday weekend of summer is always a poignant moment and a chance to reflect on seasonal progress.  How could a person find a way to enjoy or be interested in their "fellow campers" when they seem to be about nothing more than noisy and showy toys?  Perhaps I am not optimistic and persistent enough to find something of interest.  Instead, I aim my efforts at non-human things like topography, clouds, creeks, and dogs.    And it always seems to work.  My little dog sent a text message down to "Duke,"  her doggie friend down in Utah. Water never seems more alive than when it splashes through a fast moving creek.  I think my little girl was trying to make Duke envious of our Idaho location.  He is a labrador retriever after all. My little girl loves her lifestyle.  She runs to the bicycle to get snapped into the bungee-leash.  She has learned to keep her distance from the front wheel.  Her pace is a relentless fast trot, occasionally breaking into a w

It has been a long time since wind was a factor when camping.  But I was caught by surprise at 2 a.m. by severely gusty wind.  It was impossible to sleep, especially because I was not prepared for the wind.  Otherwise, the stabilizers would have been put down and the window would have been closed on my door.  But I was afraid to open the door in that wind. What could cause gusty wind at night?  In the daytime you can imagine violent sunlight causing differential heating of the local topography.  But at night, it seems like air pressures would gradually equalize.  Hence no gusts. My goodness, how can a fellow spend so much time outdoors and not learn more about how the earth works?  And yet,  virtually every blog or video talks about  nature as eye-candy to be consumed. 

I followed a river in Montana the other day.  Rivers are no small miracle to an old desert rat who has trouble visualizing moving water.  After an hour of trying I gave up on finding any good campsites along the river.  This experience confirmed my first decision about camping, learned many years ago: avoid lakes and rivers.  It sounds weird but I enjoyed feeling lost and frustrated.  It was late enough in the day to feel a twinge of desperation.  Finally I saw a humble, brown sign for a dirt road that headed perpendicularly to the river, towards high sagebrush hills.  It looked like the kind of area that scenery tourists -- including van nomads -- would not be interested in.  Therefore I was.  The road wasn't too rough and steep, and it is usually possible for a van + trailer to get turned around in places like this. Sagebrush hills always grab my imagination.  The hills are like giant, lethal waves sloshing over the "sagebrush sea."  That is how waves on a stormy lake c

Montana is too big of a state to "waste."  But I have spent little time camping in the state because of grizzly bears.  It takes some real effort to overcome this phobia.  But I am doing it!   It seems safer to camp on BLM grass/sagebrush than in forests, since you don't have to worry about a bear hiding behind trees and brush.  But actually, grizzlies love open areas if they have lots of rodent burrows.   BLM land is windier than forests, which hardly helps with bear spray.   Also, every small rise in sagebrush produces a blind spot on its far side.  (For people who have seen or read "Lonesome Dove," recall what finally happens to the main character when he carelessly and overconfidently rides over the top of a small hill, with no concern for what could be on the far side.)  I had better stop talking like this or I will lapse back into ursa-phobia!  Let me just focus on avoiding Yellowstone, Glacier national park, and the land in between the two.  Avoiding se

It is time to celebrate.  We are two months past the summer solstice.  When you add in the two months before the solstice, that adds up to 1/3 of the year.  And this is the third that I dread. This summer there were several weeks of triple digit heat (F) in most of the larger towns and cities of the inland Northwest.  And tomorrow we slide off into thermal paradise, especially for a camper. It just doesn't get any better than this: What is better than stepping out of your camper and not feeling fear and dread of the sun?  Your skin is so happy. (Just so you know, when town was in the triple digits, it maxxed out at 84 F in my camper.)

'Revenge is a dish best served cold,' is an old saying that gets used quite a bit, and rightly so.  In some ways it seems profoundly true.  Perhaps Iran is taking its time in retaliating against Israel because they are following that old saying. The world is tense waiting for massive Iranian strikes against Israel.  Some people might think that Iran looks weak by delaying their retaliation.  But maybe revenge can be improved by more than just 'being served cold.'  Maybe revenge can take a different form than just smacking the other guy back in the face.     Iran should keep installing S-400 air defense missiles and other electronic equipment that ties Iranian military equipment to Russian satellite surveillance.   This could be the ultimate revenge against Israel, and it could save both Israeli and Iranian lives.  Improving Iranian defense against the Israeli Air Force should be visualized as the 'moral equivalent' of revenge.   It would work to America's an

How do people pull large horse trailers on forest roads in the mountains?  Answer: they are probably locals who are familiar with the roads.  Other people probably wonder how RVers like me pull trailers on those roads in the mountains, since I am usually on unfamiliar roads. Besides having a suitable trailer it is important for your map to distinguish maintained, gravel roads from mere jeep roads.  You get started on one of these easy roads and pause at turnaround (T junction) spots and 'look before you leap.'  (It isn't that much work to drop the trailer there, especially if you eschew weight distribution bars.  Then you can check out the rest of the road with just your tow vehicle or bicycle.) That is the theory, anyway.  Macho pride can get a person into unfortunate situations and that almost happened to me yesterday.  Quite by accident I was on a road to yet another pass that Lewis & Clark used between Idaho and Montana.  But then the whole idea grabbed me, and I s

 It was quite amusing to see raptors and buzzards gliding near the cliff-line, by my campsite.  They can seem so playful.  I wonder if that is how they see it.  The birds glided remarkably close to me and my little dog.  It seemed more than just chance.  Maybe they were curious. In the evening a powered paraglider repeated the same trick as the birds, although he didn't have the afternoon wind to produce "ridge lift".  The human flyer was showing off a bit, but I didn't mind.  Their sails are such pretty things to look at. Ultralight aircraft would be even more appealing if it weren't for their noisy engines.  Do you think any of them have converted to e-ultralights?  You'd think they would be more reliable than an internal combustion engine.  Well, that sounds like today's internet search project.

In an ideal world a traveler would look forward to visiting towns and perhaps even cities.  But I find myself not even trying.  There are a couple exceptions.  The city park along the Salmon River is having the same pleasing effect on me that it has had on previous summers.   It doesn't hurt that it is dog-friendly.  My little 20-pounder got away from me and took off after a Doberman pinscher.  Nothing bad happened, but she couldn't try that trick too many times in a row before something did. My goodness, a camper like me can almost forget how to talk with other people.  But here, along the river park, I find some friendly chit-chat with the locals.  One person was leading a cat on a leash -- I said that I was looking for the dog park, and she must be looking for the cat park. I love the rivers of Idaho.  It takes a long time before you can visualize their layout. Perhaps if I hang around the park today, I will find an energetic labrador retriever who plays in the river. Later

I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I stumbled on an interesting travel video.   This is not the genre that leads to success -- usually.   And that is true whether you are looking at the older generation's version of travel or at the youngsters. The credit goes to You Tube's algorithm, I guess.  But how can an algorithm make the value judgments that are needed? Anyway here is the video of a young couple and their little dog who rode their bikes around their neighborhood in New Hampshire.   They weren't out there to obsess over 'How Far?' and 'How Fast?'  They were just using the bicycles to help them relax into the right mood. The character of the land was so appealing:  it had a balance of raw nature and human features such as houses, barns, agricultural fields, and livestock.  Most travel videos show freakish and useless land.  (And that is pretty much the land I am stuck with, in the Western states.)  Surely I am not the only one turned off by

Looking at the long-range weather forecast for the inland Northwest, I felt euphoria and relief.  We are at a wonderful time of year.  Summer isn't over, certainly.  But the heat waves are over.  There is nothing wrong with warm days in summer.  But   'hot' is disgusting.  It is confidence-inspiring to realize that the worst heat has toughened you up for merely moderate heat. What is the name of this time of year?  Pagans celebrated and named holidays at the winter solstice and at rebirth in spring.  And harvest-time.  Did they celebrate this time of year? Ironically I am camped higher than my other locations, this summer.  You don't expect a nice breeze in late summer but we had one.  Glorious.  I needed some way to celebrate the occasion. It has been awhile since my little dog had a bath.  I used to say, "There is nothing better in this world than a freshly laundered poodle."  But I bought clippers for this dog, which cut hair 1-1.5 millimeters from the sk

 It just keeps getting harder and harder to be a geopolitical analyst. (Grin.) Charlie Chaplin in the "Great Dictator" Why does Israel seem so intent on escalating into a regional war right now, this summer?  Perhaps they are trying to take advantage of a power vacuum, an interregnum, in Washington DC.  Perhaps they hope to incite the Republican and Democrat parties into a bidding war over who can provide the best support of Israel. This is a surprise to me.  If I were the genocider-in-chief of Israel, I would hold off until there is a new president, especially if he is Trump.  It is possible that most of the pro-Ukraine media in NATO countries will admit in late summer or autumn that Ukraine has lost the war.  And that should make it easier for Trump to pull the plug on the war.  He can remind everybody that he was opposed to the Ukraine War all along, that it is a humiliation to NATO, and that it was a big waste of American money.   (On the other hand, if there is still ho

An outdoorsman should not insist on his route being a loop.  But, still, a loop is fun if you can make one.  There was a possible loop from camp on my ridge.   Nothing sets you up for success like choosing a route with just the right amount of uncertainty.  It is possible that  the road will turn into pure rubble or become so overgrown that it is unpassable.   Don't overstudy it!  Don't lust for postcard scenery; try to get interested in ordinary things that you are likely to find.  By "ordinary things" I mean fundamental processes that make life on planet Earth possible.    That is how I felt when the little dog and I came up on the widest and lushest swale of the whole summer.  And I didn't expect it at all. I need to spend an entire post rhapsodizing about swales.  For the moment, suffice it to say that this was that magical moment when skepticism evaporated and I realized that the route was a success. Finally we turned right to reascend the ridge, back to cam

It was easy to get started early that morning.  I was motivated.  I had some errands in town, about 2000' lower than the stony ridge I was camped on.  In town it was expected to be triple digits in the afternoon, again.   (Hardly any towns in the Inland Northwest are high altitude and comfortable.) When I drove by a large lake I was surprised that nobody was there.  But really, who goes out to play in the water at 7 a.m.?  By 11 a.m. some people would surely be out there, enjoying it. Thinking about that brought on a powerful wave of nostalgia, despite "going to the lake to cool off" not being a big part of my childhood.  But most people at least remember running through lawn sprinklers as a child.  There are other pleasant memories, such as the anticipation of grandmother or mother making ice-cold lemonade.  Or getting a little bit of relief from a porch swing or riding a bicycle. This is time for my annual advertisement for the chapter, "Quincy", in the "

I was looking at the movies available on tubitv.com,   and found "Elmer Gantry", made around 1960, and featuring a powerful performance by Burt Lancaster.  (I watched it with the Brave browser and Adblock, which worked great.)  The movie is more worthwhile if you take it allegorically.  The story is about Christian revivalists in the Bible Belt, but many of its points apply just as well to other popular delusions, such as democratic politics. Elmer Gantry seems a lot like Donald Trump.  I wonder if the legacy of the Trump era will be that presidential candidates will always arise through the entertainment industry, and that their on-camera personality is the only thing that will matter.

 Ponderosa forests have a large fan club in the camping community, and I am a member.  But in mid-summer, the shade in these forests is not quite good enough.  This makes a guy appreciate the thicker shade of spruce forests.  I can't believe I said that. Many campers prefer the panoramic views of more open land to the locked-down viewscape of a thick spruce forest.  Then, when they do come out into the open, it is really fun: All in all, it is a good thing that one month is different from the others, and that one forest isn't just like all the others. It was also fun to come back into Idaho.  I begged for mercy at the local grocery store: could they spare a couple extra grocery bags?  I had used up all my bags in Oregon and I use grocery bags as trash bags!  Why is it environmentally-correct to have to buy larger trash bags to dispose of kitchen waste?  It is also nice to be rid of the 10 cent deposit on bottles and cans.  I want to support the Oregon law, but the recycling ma

  Yesterday,   for the first time in a long time, I was in a real visitor's center.  There were so many glossy brochures bragging up one place or another.  It was almost funny how little any of that mattered to me.  I was trying to learn how a visitor might get a UPS package delivered in this town.  It used to be easy, but the drug store abandoned their partnership with UPS and Amazon, and the UPS customer service center is now closed.  That is happening everywhere it seems. Isn't it strange that towns acknowledge the importance of visitors to their economy but they don't understand that visitors shop online when they are traveling?  Hell, there is nothing to buy in stores anymore, except grocery stores and gas stations. On the bright side, thrift stores seem to be coming up in the world.  Maybe they will take the place of Dollar Stores now that Dollar Stores are charging convenience-store prices.  Considering what a landfill economy we have, it makes sense that thrift stor

  What an iconic image for the history books! The Democratic Party knows what this photo alone portends, as if they couldn't already predict November's election results. But not everybody is miserable.  The Permanent Regime (aka, Deep State) also knew what was coming.  Since they had run out of options on the Democrat side, they had to operate on the Republican side. They needed a good way to snatch at least a partial victory from certain defeat, although Trump's first term should have eased their fears that he was any serious threat to their power and perks.  But perhaps he would have been more confident and assertive in his second term -- it was a serious concern for them. Do you really think that somebody in the Permanent Regime is going to lose their government job or cushy pension just because they allowed a visible shooter on a rooftop with line of sight to Trump?  Oh sure, there will be an investigation that moves at a glacial pace and is so convoluted that the publi

Whenever America starts a new war, or when some perfectly explainable tragedy happens, politicians mention "God" in every other sentence.  Does anyone really believe that those politicians believe in God?   Apparently the politicians have to offer references to "God" as pabulum to the masses. I was surfing You Tube channels after the event in Pennsylvania where "Trump fell to floor after some loud noises were heard."  (CNN's headline.)  Whenever the You Tube channel started talking about offering our prayers or god God GOD, I just turned it off.

  Nobody in the media has talked about the presence or absence of drones to keep an eye on rooftop shooting locations around the edges of areas where a political rally is happening.  It sounds like a practical and effective "force extender" for Secret Service agents.  Why hasn't this even been mentioned?

I think a commenter was right about my dud flower-identification.  Now let's move onto a likely dud butterfly-identification.     I had just relocated camp and got interested in this guy: OK I claim it is a Western Tiger Swallowtail.  While knocking around on the internet, I was delighted to learn about the Oregon Swallowtail: Wouldn't it be great to spot this species!