Occupation of Independence

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 th...

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 w...

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 'pois...

  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...

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.  ...

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...

  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 sou...

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?