Occupation of Independence

Let's hope this is the last spring storm. Maybe I've always misunderstood what was meant by a "windy day." Didn't it mean high average speed? But that certainly isn't what happened the other night.  The average speed wasn't unusual, but the gusts were violent and a little scary actually. Since air is a compressible fluid it shouldn't be able to produce the hydraulic hammering that my RV experienced. Sleep became impossible. And wouldn't you know it: the "ship" was parked abeam the west wind. What happened to sailors pointing the ship directly into the face of the storm? I was camped alone at the northeastern mouth of the Chiricahua mountains, where these vertiginous mountains debouch onto the lonesome horizontalness of high desert. Hmmm... sudden elevation changes seem like they could make large pressure gradients, i.e., wind. What does a camper do when wind becomes a hateful nuisance, besides staying indoors that is? I headed up

Southeast of Tucson. Every now and then a full-time RVer gets an opportunity to house and dog-sit. Normally it is during the "off" season, when the homeowner and everybody else wants to get out of town because of the dreadful weather. The ranch was drop-dead gorgeous. It was my favorite land: rolling grasslands, with an occasional mesquite or live oak tree, and a great view of the Santa Rita mountains, only seven miles away. It was amusing to watch the culture gap between normal, house-obsessed women and an RV boondocker/camper like myself. I was hoping for some shade to park my trailer under. It was surprising to learn that an entire guest house was available to me. It looked like something that belonged on the front cover of a glossy magazine, Fine Ranch Living Today , or some such thing. I was only concerned about heat, happy dogs, and good bicycling. After I surprised the women by showing no interest in even walking up six steps to inspect bedrooms and bathro

At first it felt silly to include this photograph since it is similar to recent ones. But wait a minute -- why must a blogger try to be brilliantly original? Why can't he just wallow in something he loves, even at the expense of being repetitive? The sky around here takes on a strange yellow color when the wind is only moderately strong. Perhaps it is due to the large open-pit copper mine nearby. (The photo is not sauced up by any editing-software.) Something that is somewhat new is the seasonal adjustment to my camping style. There are plenty of reasons to stay out of RV parks, but one reason that can get overlooked is how much a camper gains by facing the screen door towards the right direction, depending on the season. In mid-winter the screen door needs to face south, in order to glory in that warm Arizona sun.  In summer, the door must face north or you couldn't stand to open it all day; you develop an obsessive lust for the shade; and as summer wanes in late Au

Going to bed too early can destroy the quality of a night's sleep for some of us. Sleep is a big part of life, so this problem can't be laughed off as a small annoyance. It probably afflicts RV boondockers worse than other lifestyles, since using fewer lights and gadgets tends to shut a person down at night. The Early Bedtime Syndrome is a nexus for several lifestyle issues. An RV friend, 15 years older than me, once said that he went to bed at 8 pm, and "why not?; it was perfectly natural with the early sunsets in winter". The trouble with that argument is that it's also natural to wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning. Going to bed too early when camping in town is a dreadful mess, since stores and traffic are still roaring late into the evening, and since you hear everything in an RV. How did this problem get started in the first place? Blame success. Traffic, wind, dry heat, monsoonal thunderstorms, and wildlife viewing are all good reasons why mornings are

Oh sure, I knew Globe AZ was a bit higher than the Gila River that I was following into the state. But a casino is a good place to wait out a winter storm while watching NFL football. The sun wouldn't come out long enough for a good morning shot of palmas y sierra nevada . At least the photo proves out the title of this blog. I thought the weather would recover on Monday. I don't mind the cold, but a dog-owning RVer hates precipitation. So I took off this morning only to find that the small climb to Globe was enough to create a heavy snowstorm. The road didn't actually feel slippery but after my clay debacle of last week I am feeling cautious. So I pulled off into a big box parking lot. There sat a nice-looking pickup and camper, who probably had the same idea. I snickered when I saw the Florida license plates. After all, what sort of moron would drive all that way to Arizona in December and then get stuck in snow? (grin)

Every Age has not only its own spirit, its zeitgeist , but also its characteristic vices and diseases. The Information Age sucks us into paying attention to too much trivial and trashy "news". For travelers in particular, the same syndrome manifests itself as Novelty idolatry. I was feeling very pleased with the world on the last day of November when this (un-edited, un-photoShopped) sunset crowned an excellent day. I was camped on some BLM land, on the western edge of New Mexico, watching my first Arizona sunset in over three and a half years. For some reason it was important to me not to enter Arizona before December 01. As luck would have it, a winter storm was arriving the first day in Arizona. On this autumn's migration it was satisfying to have connected the Colorado/San Juan river systems with the Rio Grande, and back again to the Colorado/Gila system with a minimum amount of driving. It was sweet revenge to revisit the place near Grand Junction where I alm

When winter really hits, there's nothing subtle about it, and I was running for my life now. As feared I hit snow near 7000 foot altitude around Monticello UT; in fact the Utah state highway snowplows were already working the road there. Let's face it: pulling a trailer in the snow is a fool's mission. I was relieved to get out of the snow by the time I was down to 6500 feet. At Bluff UT, on the San Juan river, I was at the fork in the road: migrate from southwestern UT, using the Virgin and Colorado rivers, or use the Rio Grande in New Mexico. I chose the latter because I hadn't done it for years and I wanted to postpone going to the usual, hackneyed, warm spots in Arizona for as long as possible. As always I looked forward to seeing ShipRock. It's a rival of Monument Valley, but not as popular. Monument Valley has been a photo cliche since John Ford's westerns of the 1940's. Why do people even go there and photograph it? But ShipRock has no park built

As my travel-blog friends took off this morning I had plenty to exult over. If they hadn't been here in Moab, which they had a lot of experience with, I might have blown through town without even stopping. The area is best for tourists and vacationers, not full time travelers. A camper would have to love crowds, fees, and restrictions to feel comfortable here. It is also over-rated as a mountain biking mecca. There is too much loose sand in much of Utah. So I deferred to Mark and Bobbie, resulting in superb locations and hikes. OK, I admit it: the scenery was 'breathtakingly beautiful,' but more for the topography than the "red" color. It isn't "red"; it's red-brown, terra-cotta, the same color as a cheap clay pot. Why do people make such a big deal of the color? Off they went to southwestern Utah to warm up, while leaving me here, wondering about how to dignify my autumn migration by heading downriver, some river, any river. It's not

Having just gotten camped in a new location, it was time to do something that I hadn't done in a long time: pop the outer door open, while letting the screen door face right at the southern sun. At this time of the year, the sun is getting quite a bit lower; we're only two months from the winter solstice. I'd forgotten how glorious it is feel the Southwest's sun through solar screen. (Years ago, I'd replaced regular RV industry screen with 85% blocking solar screen.) It's easy to under-estimate how pleasant it is to feel, simultaneously, cool autumn air and warm, moderated sunlight through that solar screen. This might seem like a trivial experience to people who are not familiar with the Southwestern sun, or who spend all summer in air-conditioned domiciles or cars. It might also seem like nothing is accomplished by suffering heat in the summer, without an air-conditioner, only to get the pleasure back in autumn; you could argue that it averages out, over a f

It might just be a fluke of a small data set, but it seems that RV travelers are already too far south this October. "There he goes again, running down people who have different tastes than himself," say a few readers. But actually, I'm not talking about tastes at all; I'm talking about geography. North America is 10-20 times smaller in winter than in summer, after taking into account what most travelers desire. This causes two problems: 1) a noticeable population compression in the places that are desirable in winter, and 2) you run out of places to go in the winter. You get tired of the same old places. Population compression (#1) does not enhance the camping experience unless you enjoy lines, crowds, generators, or higher prices and reservations at RV parks. Problem #2 is real, but not severe. I like the places that I've gone to, in winters past. Still, there is a limit to how long I can stay interested in places like the Mojave Desert or windy southern N

It's Dawn now. From this cold and lonely mesa in western Colorado I see the city lights, below. I'm surprised how gorgeous they look from this vantage point of only a couple hundred feet above the valley floor. How could so much be gained by so little? I shouldn't avert my eyes from the ugliness of Montrose, a rather standard sprawling noisy American city, completely dependent on automobiles for transportation. Much of the beauty of those lights comes, not from their color or faint flickering, but from the contrast with the unpleasantness of city life, and from my own detachment from it on this mesa. There's just enough light to judge the type and extent of the clouds. Day seems real again and full of promise.

It hardly seems intuitive to begin an autumn migration by going north, but that is what we did yesterday. Latitude does matter, at least 400 mile chunks of it, and especially at this time of year, but altitude still matters more. The Uncompahgre River drains to the north. A cynic might argue that half the appeal of a reverse migration is just the feeling that one isn't supposed to do it. Actually, one of the sweetest pleasures can be gotten by noble and voluntary suffering in the Cold before finally relenting and moving towards the Warm. (We all know certain Sybarites of the Road who would never believe this.) When the dogs and I got out of the van in Montrose CO, the sun felt delicious; but it was the rareness of this pleasure that was most appreciated. How many times does the driver of an un-air-conditioned cargo van actually enjoy warm sun coming through that big windshield? Normally I loathe it, and worry about the heat harming my dogs. I can't imagine bathers in fam

The San Juan Mountains still have plenty of tourists here for the fall color season. I wonder if this is what they had in mind. Wasn't it Arthur Koestler's Act of Creation that discussed the usefulness of inversion in creativity? Maybe he was on to something. For instance, every windshield tourist is running around the mountains trying to take "breathtakingly beautiful" postcards of autumn colors. Since digital cameras are so good, most of these postcards look pretty much the same, and the world's supply of pixels is depleted for nothing. A yellow leaf is just a yellow leaf. What if, instead of joining the leaf-peeping hordes, we asked, "What is the ugliest thing we could photograph at this time of year?" Or is that negative thinking? Well at least it is thinking, and a difficult type of thinking it truly is. For instance I thought wet, disgusting snow coming down in early October might be a suitably perverse subject. But being anti-beautiful i

Ouray, CO. So why would a reputed curmudgeon, who typically belittles postcard scenery, bother with this postcard, taken today on a hike with both of my dogs? The key word is 'both'. My little poodle is acting older now that he is almost 16 and a half years old. That's like a person in their eighties. So I haven't been taking him on hikes with my younger dog, Coffee Girl. Today we actually drove (blush) the van up to a trailhead. The little poodle was so frisky that he wouldn't stay in the van and sleep like I expected. He insisted on going on the hike. I had to improvise a leash, since his collar wasn't even installed. Instead of tiring in five minutes, he charged the leash, and acted like he could go for hours. This isn't the first time that I've underestimated him. By the time we crossed the creek and got back in the van, I was getting pretty misty-eyed just thinking about the wonderful life we've had together and how, miraculously, there

I was laboring in the dirt under the hot sun like a peasant in the fields: shoveling, jerking weeds, carting them away without a burro to help. Geesh, the sort of things a guy has to do to get world class scenery, ideal weather, and eye-popping hiking trails, with free camping and amenities in Ouray CO. But my back-breaking toil and suffering momentarily abated when I saw this little guy in the newly disturbed ground. I've never seen such a spiked, punk caterpillar before. Even more than his interesting appearance was his attitude: he was frisky. It's not exaggerating to say that he was a sentient being, instead of the usual slug-like personality. When I brought the camera in, he seemed to look (?) at it: who the hell are you and what's your problem, the look seemed to say. Then again, maybe it was the other end that was aiming.

Datil NM, 7200 feet. Normally late August is a time of jubilation. There are signs of beating another summer. Most people are eager for autumn. But today I had mixed feelings about digging out a winter stocking hat for the dawn dog walk. The memory returned of surviving sub-zero temperatures in my trailer last winter in Silver City. Not this winter. It's funny how important a stocking hat is to a camper. Sometimes I take emergency supplies on my mountain bike; the stocking hat and an emergency rain poncho are the first things I take. But seeing summer temperatures peak and head down is still good news since there are many more places to choose from, at mediocre altitudes.

A cycling website that I visit frequently mentioned the results of the Leadville 100 mountain bike race. Sigh. Just hearing of Leadville (use Search this Blog on the left) brought back some powerful memories for me. For the first time I started getting emotional about getting back on the road; until now it was hard to believe that I was really leaving tomorrow. A week after the Leadville race, still in the mid-August, I used to notice Leadville (10,200 feet high) getting cooler and foggier. Summer was on the wane, and it was time to start a slow retreat towards winter camp. Many high places in Colorado would still be good until late September. No matter how many years I was traveling, the autumn migration kept bringing a lump to my throat. And now I'm "migrating" north in mid-August? Everything is upside-down.

It's too early in the monsoon season in the Southwest to see flowers. Most of them are cautious and wait until September. These two were a real surprise. Keep in mind that there was a severe drought for nine months prior to this. It's not good enough to just be pretty when you're in the flower biz. Something more dramatic and interesting is needed. First we must push away the Trivial and the Prittee-Poo, and dwell on the horribleness of the drought. We must be willing to stare into the Abyss . Some people won't do that because that would be "negative thinking." Too bad, because the real beauty isn't in the "positive", banal, and insipid color of flowers; it's in the violent contrast between Suffering and Rain. It reminded me of RVing in Mexico. Sometimes I would sit out in the plaza and admire the pretty senoritas; schoolgirls actually. It surprised me that they were so attractive. But why? Must a country have material affluence to have

One of the great things about living at high altitude is the cool evenings and mornings. But there is something almost unnerving about Dawn in midsummer, especially when the monsoons start and nocturnal clouds and humidity trap the terrestrial heat. It doesn't even seem real to walk outdoors at Dawn and not brace yourself against the chill: to relax the entire body and not feel threatened, and to be at peace with the world at this most peaceful time of day. As much as I dislike mid-day heat, it's worth suffering it just to experience these mild Dawns.

Once a year I usually have a chance to visit an RV friend who amuses me by writing first drafts of blog posts with pen and paper. (The reader might have an elderly aunt who still sends handwritten letters because they are more "personal".) Recall that it used to be more common to say that pen and paper help you think, whereas the computer supposedly distracts the writer. It seems quaint to see him look at his notes on paper and then start expostulating on his still-unpolished ideas.