Occupation of Independence

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