Occupation of Independence

The reader might be familiar with the semi-recent movie, "Best in Show." The spine of the plot is a dog show, but it is not really a 'dog movie.' Rather, it's a comedic mockumentary about their neurotic human owners. Today's hike in Zion country (southwestern Utah) turned out the opposite: it was the humans who were acting sensibly, and the dogs who were nuts. We had five dogs in our party, eight humanoid-companion-units, and a neighborhood dawg, Blue, who tends to join any frolic taking place on her BLM land. As we drove up, I thought my kelpie, Coffee Girl, was going to crash through the windshield with excitement when she saw all these playmates. All of the dogs, no two alike and weighing from 10 to 80 pounds, got along beautifully. I get really charged up by the frantic synergy of dogs. You could think of this walk as a linear-BLM-version of a dog park. Vertical wall of a red sandstone arroyo. What could cause such a weird bend in the whitish laye

The word 'flow' in the title of the last post and a comment by uber -commenter, George, reminded me of something. Gee, if only the search box in blogger worked right. After some brute-force-searching I finally found that other post.  This blog isn't a travelogue of Breaking News of the day. There is too much of that approach on the internet. The more minute-by-minute writing becomes, the more trivial it gets. So I rewrote this other experience, hoping that a couple "moments of truth" will come across more clearly to the reader. _____________________________________ The Little Poodle and I "paddled" upstream -- on the mountain bike -- along the popular Arkansas River, near "Byoona" Vista, CO. We saw one river rafting company after another. As luck would have it, we made it in time for their mass "descension" of the Arkansas River. (If balloonists at the Albuquerque festival can have a mass ascension, then rafters in Colo

Silverton, Colorado. A classic hike up to a glacial lake and cirque sounded good. We used a road rather than a hiking trail in order to get a more open view in the forest. Although there are a lot of motorheads in the San Juans, the ones we encountered were all polite adults. We got a start still early enough to experience something that should not be interesting, but was: when walking into the morning sun, all of the flying insects were backlighted. They zinged across the glare, like a video game. But they didn't all zing away. A small, orange butterfly remained on a rock in the middle of the road. Maybe it was too frightened to move; maybe it was just sunning. Then the little poodle quite amazed me by slowly lowering his muzzle to the butterfly, until he and La Mariposa shared a gentle nose kiss. On the way up to the lake we saw scenery like this: But since this is the kind of scenery you expect in the San Juan Mountains, it didn't have much effect

...and wouldn't you know that I didn't get a photo of her. My next camera is going to be smaller. Maybe high-resolution cameras on smartphones is the way to go. Anyway, her name is Emma, and she is a half-grown miniature labra-doodle, sired by a miniature poodle, and brought into this world by a Labrador Retriever mother. A good guess is that she will top out at 25-30 pounds. A person can be a professional dog-lover and still have only weak respect for many dog-owners. For all I can see, most dog owners have little practical common sense about their dogs; they selected the dog based on its physical appearance more than anything. How did the average metropolitan Indoorsman/couch-potato/cubicle rat ever get it into their head that they need an 80 pound Lab or an energetic hunting breed? Why do so few owners try to socialize their dogs, such as taking it to the dog park and getting it used to having fun with other dogs? Where did they get the idea that dogs are better than a

It seemed like a pretty hopeless place to enjoy water sports: a New Mexico state park. (Heron Lake.) The lake looked like somebody pulled the cork out of the bottom. And yet, the 6 or 8 paddlers, sailors, and fishermen seemed to be enjoying themselves. I personally never had great success with water sports, despite a fair bit of effort. But the two sailboaters here were putting the New Mexican wind to good use.  Overnight they camped right down by the water, in their small rigs. Even after a night of relative aeolian quiescence, the waves were still making a pleasant music against the shoreline at sunrise. Isn't that great!? State park bureaucrats actually allow people the freedom to have fun, here. Don't ask me how they reconcile such behavior with Patriotism and America's security needs.  And speaking of fun. The next morning Kurumi Ted took Chaco, the Labrador retriever, and my kelpie, Coffee Girl, down to a stream that actually had flowing water in it. The la

We were taking a hike on the Continental Divide this morning when a couple super-athletes came by. Both dogs made Tour de France cyclists look like pudgy marshmallows. They had enormously long legs, exposed ribs, and tortilla-sized floppie ears. They had no interest in being petted or drinking water. They were not unfriendly to me or my kelpie, Coffee Girl.   All legs and lungs -- and ribs! But there was an indifference that I'm not used to seeing in a dog. I don't like it. A dog should be your friend and come back to you when called. The "generalist" makes a better pet than an obsessive-compulsive specialist, like these two workaholic hounds. Still, you have to admire a critter that is good at what it does, and does exactly what it was "meant" to do. That certainly describes these two. They were serious professionals on the job, hunting for something. Their earnestness was accentuated by the GPS collars and foot-long antennas, which gave them a b

Abiquiu, NM. On a day of ooze and muck, it is time that I came clean. Much as I love to debunk four-wheel-drive vehicles and brag about how well my rear-wheel-drive van pulls the trailer through the mountains, I sing a different tune when the dirt roads become wet. When I learn there is clay in the road, the tune stops altogether. Fortunately a Forest Service guy gave me fair warning. He also explained why these high ridges north of Abiquiu are so attractive: they burned 100 years ago and the trees haven't been able to get reestablished, resulting in a balanced combination of pastures and forests. It never gets better than this. I was experiencing a great success primarily due to telling the internet where to go. This allowed me to expand, almost euphorically, into new ground. Nothing makes western North America get BIGGER than kissing off the internet. So I'm exploring the northern counties of New Mexico contained in the highway loops formed by US-285 on the east, US

Long-suffering readers know that I'm not naive about utopian, pie-in-the-sky dreams about some vaunted community, especially one tainted with Age of Aquarius culture. But that's not the point. A better RV lifestyle needs to be constructed, and the term "community" expresses that goal as well as any other single word. Before theorizing and polemicizing about this project, let's keep our feet on the ground by observing some very tribal animals: our dogs. My fellow camper has two Corgis, a grandmother and her grand-daughter. Notice the moral support Grannie gives to the Pupster as she engages in community recreational activities with my dog, Coffee Girl (the larger, black dog at the bottom of the pile): Initially Coffee Girl was afraid of the Pupster. But soon she learned how to play with her with just the right amount of roughness. Clearly it has become fun for both of them. Normally their play begins with the Pupster trying to bring it on. The caption he

Since I normally pound away at government and politicians on this blog, it is a refreshing change to praise one of the rare success stories of local governments, the dog park. Whose idea was it originally, where did it get started, and how did it achieve critical mass? Dog parks are almost as big a success for people as they are for dogs. How much friendly interaction (between strangers) is there in the average public setting, such as the city park, festivals, restaurants and bars, etc.? Even "fellow" hikers on a hiking trail can be neutral or icy to each other. In a dog park the human owners trust each other and give compliments to the other owners for the appearance and comportment of their dogs. Coffee Girl just finished up a workout at a dog park south of Tucson. This is the third time we've been there, so it almost saddens me to leave the area. It is the best dog park I have seen yet; I'm not referring to the physical facility. It's the critical mass

The sky islands of southern Arizona are great places to camp, hike, and mountain bike; thus we've returned to them, after three years off the road. We had a strange experience here, four winters ago. In fact I am looking out the window at the exact spot on the mountain, as I type.  It was just a couple months after the little poodle had been rescued above Book Cliffs near Grand Junction, CO. I've edited this oldie-but-goodie. Tonopah AZ... Walking right from the RV's front door of our solitary boondocking site, we headed for the nearest mountain. These small mountain ranges can be quite photogenic; even better, they are finite: you can look at them from a variety of angles on one day. It was topped off with a cliff and caprock that almost made it look like a mesa. A large hole in that cliff had attracted my eye for days. It got steeper as we approached the cliff, so much so that I had to scramble on all fours. At the foot of the cliff the little poodle froze in

BLM land near Soccoro, NM. It's hard to believe that I was hiking at San Juan mountain altitudes less than a month ago, near Ouray CO. How could an outing along the Rio Grande possibly stack up well compared to hiking several thousand feet above a boutique mountain town that is visited by people from all over the world? Fortunately outdoor pleasure is not influenced all that much by sheer size. Also, this blog is dedicated to promoting a tacto-centric hedonic ethos of the outdoors versus the opto-centric obsessions of the mass tourist. Here it is chilly most of the time, but I liked it except for the first day, when the cold wind was a bit unpleasant. (But hey, it's winter in New Mexico.) Besides, the unpleasantness just made our reunion with the arroyos of the desert more delicious. I really appreciated one reader's comments about the under-rated outdoor pleasure of experiencing warm sun and cold air against the skin, simultaneously . That was even more the case on

It's hard to believe we were returning to the scene of the crime, to the foot of Book Cliffs north of Grand Junction CO, where, four years ago, my little poodle ran away in panic from noisy target-practice shooters, and disappeared for fourteen days before he trotted up to an elk hunter's pickup truck. The full story is on the tab, Sad Story at Book Cliffs, at the top of the blog. His extended life has been a good one. Would he remember this awful place? He seems to remember people and places from one year back, but not four. And besides, he's mostly deaf and blind now. I stopped the rig about a quarter mile short of the camping turnaround that I remembered all too well, since I wallowed in angst and guilt there for a week, hoping for his return four years ago. At the end of the week I accepted defeat, went to the Grand Junction animal shelter, and adopted Coffee Girl. We walked the rest of the way in order to inspect the road condition. As we approached Book Cliffs,

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

On the trail to Upper Cascade Falls, Ouray CO. Unlike my little poodle, who would pose for the camera at the slightest suggestion, Coffee Girl is difficult to photograph. Her mostly black color restricts the photographs to silhouettes. Even worse, the second she hears the camera click on, she obediently runs back to Daddy to see if she can help. Herding dogs are so attentive!

How could a full time traveler not get spoiled and fickle; how could he ever adjust to doing the same thing twice? Those were the doubts I had when getting off the road about three years ago. But I had a secret weapon: the Granny J Principle. That is, I would now look at "routine" things more carefully and closely, instead of relying on sheer visual novelty. A mind can be like a camera that takes a macro closeup of interesting details, instead of a pan-opticon of ever-changing landscapes.

My little poodle, Pancho, celebrates his 16th birthday this week. He has no illness or pain that I know of. But he has the usual old-dog issues like deafness and maybe 50% of his eyesight left. After the coyote attack last autumn (click the Dancing with Wolves tab at the top of the screen) I restricted him to walking on the leash. When he started slowing down and losing interest in going on walks, I was a bit slow to see cause and effect. Another dog owner told me how her last old dog loved eating and going on car rides right to the end. I wondered if I should take Pancho out in the BOB trailer that fits behind a bicycle and let him go off-leash. So I did both. He started acting a whole year younger! What a little scamp. Seriously, his "hearing" has even improved, by which I mean his mental alertness has improved to react to what little hearing is left. But we saw the coyote close to camp a couple days ago. So his off-leash distance from me must be kept short!     I'

Dog owners know that one of their urchin's favorite tricks is falling behind on a walk, supposedly due to some worthy distraction. Then they suddenly look up and realize they're too far away. This brings on a mad dash back to their owner; their paws sound as loud as the hooves of a galloping horse. Coffee Girl, my Australian kelpie, pulled that trick this morning. But something was a little different this time. There was no wind to disperse her dusty contrail. It stayed intact a few feet off the ground and drifted away, ever so slowly. It seemed too solid for anything airborne, perhaps because the rising sun was illuminating the contrail, but not the field proper. It was cruise missile-like; in an earlier era we would have said that it belonged in a Loonie Toons cartoon. The contrail of dust, el camino del polvo , seemed like it was a part of her streaking body. Sigh, if only it had been possible to film a video of this, backlit by the morning sun. At first I wondered if it

Today I was bicycling up a street where I usually get lucky at seeing dog walkers. A woman, with some kind of physical problem, was riding her electrical cart up the street. On her curb side, at a distance of three feet, ran her canine companion. His gait was happy, but steady. At first I went into mooning-and-swooning mode over a happy dog. But this was just habit. It wasn't accurate for this particular dog. He was happy certainly, but not ebullient, as I've come to expect. He was too earnest and professional. Did his owner think she was doing her little friend a favor by letting him run with her, or was he concentrating on doing her the favor? Maybe she realized that her physical problem could be turned to advantage with the electrical cart; most dogs just get tied up in the backyard. I don't think I really appreciated his special type of aura before today: one beyond mere fun, one of responsibility and purposeful effort. Later on the ride I ascended the draw separa

It's natural for a beautiful girl dog's thoughts to turn to Love with the spring weather we've been having lately. My kelpie, Coffee Girl, has a new playmate in the morning: a French Brittany spaniel, named Jake. (How declasse'.) I've never seen her act so silly before; she runs alongside him, licking his face. When he stops, she pushes the side of her body against his. A lot of good it does her. Jake is a (hunting) workaholic who has no time to waste on romantic nonsense. He has another quirk besides this: he picked up a cholla thorn the other day. His owner had to hold him down, while I pulled the two thorns out. They barely required any pulling, yet he howled bloody murder about it. I couldn't resist giggling. On our bike ride to town we saw an impressive, medium-sized, brown hawk that flew only five feet off the ground. A half dozen times I almost got my camera out, but he wouldn't cooperate. What a tease! It had a conspicuous transverse white stripe

This morning my dog, Coffee Girl, and I got off to an early start, riding down to a grassy ridge which features a 360 degree view. Following that I planned to drop her off back at the RV and then to finish the bicycle ride on my own. Halfway down the field I lost track of her. I stopped and turned around. Where the heck was she? Then I saw her streaking down the trail towards me, and at maximum speed. It was impressive and beautiful, but something was wrong. Two coyotes were in hot pursuit. The leader got within 50 meters of me before he noticed me charging him on the mountain bike. He quickly turned away from the trail. In the tall grass I couldn't chase him down. He did the usual: he ran to the back side of a juniper bush until he could just see me through the branches. How wary and observant they are!  I am really getting to hate coyotes but until I think of a way to vanquish them, I must settle for fantasies: imagine dragging its carcass behind my mountain bike and riding