Occupation of Independence

It never ceases to amaze me how specific any particular person's likes and dislikes can be. The other day Coffee Girl and I were mountain biking on the east side of the Santa Rita Mountains, south of Tucson, when we saw something that drives me a little crazy whenever I see it. Ah well, the reader probably can't even tell what I'm praising. But it jumps out at me from miles away. Here's a close-up. From a distance all you can see is something "funny." As you get closer, you get suspicious that it's nothing more than trees on a ridgeline, which appear to be delaminating from the earth. The most precious moment is ju st before you realize what you are looking at. Delamination isn't the most glamorous word. Delamination is what happens to paint on old wood. Perhaps because you are looking up at it, and you are under the influence of endorphins, a nobler word seems more fitting; a word like 'evanescence.' The trees seem to be undergoing

Yuma, AZ. It was a fresh winter day and a brisk ride to the coffee shop. The old boys were feelin' frisky, indeed. Not too many people get to experience this sort of pleasure, a special one, that comes from temporarily defying inevitability and mortality. Seventy-year-old men came into the coffee shop like a horde of Genghis's pony-riding barbarians. Why shouldn't an old man do what it takes to feel young, even if the same behavior would be immoral in ordinary circumstances? Let's sit at the coffee shop and feel macho and over-confident; and imagine ourselves as the sackers of cities and the despoilers of Civilization. Our conversations are never particularly interesting by themselves, and that was true this morning, as well. Then something strange happened: one minute the old boys were enjoying typical banter, and the next minute the mood changed entirely. A cute little lass, about 3, with blue eyes and curly hair, approached my tribe of barbarians, perhaps becau

Why does it always sound like such a left-handed compliment to call something or somebody, "Old Reliable?" Once upon a time I read everything I could get my hands on about the War Between the States. When they said that Robert E. Lee called General Longstreet his "old warhorse," I felt sorry for Longstreet and felt envious of the reckless flash of Stonewall Jackson. Likewise, how would you like to be the minivan in the garage that gets call "old reliable?" (Next to it sits a useless and pampered sports car that only gets used on Sunday afternoons when the weather is good.) Would a wife's ego be flattered if her husband thought of her as "Old Reliable?" The term is actually a serious compliment, and its user would quickly wise up if Old Reliable were taken away. Thus I always feel a little guilty when thinking of walking/hiking as a "mere" backup sport for what I really want to do. _____________________________________________

I'm about to praise a fairly new movie, but i n order to appreciate it fully, let's invoke some words from Samuel Johnson, in Adventurer # 67 :   Ha ppiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known; and such is the state or foll y of man, that it is known only b y experience of its contrary. Thus we must contrast this enjoyable movie with the cultural sinkhole that Hollywood has become. You must be brave enough to look into the abyss and appreciate how truly dreadful most movies are... ...the formulaic date movies, obligatory bedroom scenes, boring computer graphics, the F word in every other sentence, MTV-style of cut-cut-cut action trash... I really didn't know what to expect when I picked this DVD at the public library. It looked like some kind of furrin' or independent flick. During the opening credits there was mention of several French corporations or government funding agencies -- now that was a scary way to start a movie! (But actually, it w

It was an odd and pleasant experience to walk into the "breaks" near Socorro, NM; and of course that means I have to try to explain it. After all, if I don't think about and write about odd and powerful experiences, what should I write about? I don't know if most readers caught it, but d uring the discussion of my last post on this topic, history was quietly made: one of the outdoors-blogosphere's most notorious and incorrigible optical-sybarites (grin) admitted that a breathtakingly beautiful, 1200-foot-high, sheer vertical, redrock cliff is not necessarily 1.3333 times as breathtakingly beautiful as an identical cliff that is only 900 feet high. It is time to be a good sport and move on. I will nobly resist the tendency to be greedy by also trying to get him to admit that: We should stop calling things beautiful when they are just freakishly large, and therefore have been made into a national park. The freakishly large is certainly entertaining, but only

Earlier I posted about learning that I lacked the 'right set of balls' for exploring some BLM land near Socorro, NM. Something else happened that day. It was an area called the "breaks," which I take to mean interesting topographies carved out by side st r eams of the Rio Grande. It w as a fascinating area . It ma de me regre t not seeing the Missouri Breaks in Montana before I gave up on going north in the summer , after the cost o f transportation got so high.  As always, I doted over the vertical sidew alls of the arroyos: Although only 12 feet tall, this sidewall was as vertical and re d a s any cli ff in XYZ National Park that is gawked at by 4.6 million visitors per year when doing the obligatory "auto loop tour." (Wasn't it Edw ard Abbey in "Desert Solitaire" who griped about a new loop being added to the park where he was a seaso nal ranger ?) Conglomerate is a su rprisingly durable material: Further upstream I

For years now I've tried to appreciate the beauty of travel on a high er level than the postcard-kindergarten level . ( Must I take the time to add the tedious disclaimer t hat there is nothing wrong or evil about postcard kindergarten, whe n you're a vacationer or an RV newbie . I t's just that years of experience at being a full-time traveler encourage s one to progress so that travel remains challenging. That's only natural and healthy. Geesh, the time you have to spend smoothing feathers. )    Wh at I aim to do is replace the " eye as the window of the soul" with a different metaphor: one of try ing to imagine " Total Experience" as a real and tangible sensory organ -- the main organ that can truly appreciate this rather different way of life. Normally my successes on this project are singles, bunts, and sacrifice flie s. Home runs are rare indeed. But since one did occur l ast year near Socorro, NM, I wa nted to write about it, bu

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

A n experienced traveler has to move onward and upward when it comes to his appreciation of the outdoors. The postcard-worship of the newbie/vacationer is no longer of much use to him. Many people are uncomfortable with statements like this because they think they are negative. Was it "negative" when you graduated kindergarten and were promoted to first grade? A year ago I experienced an unusually powerful example of "aesthetic evolution" near Socorro, NM. Explaining it seemed like a big project. And we all know what people do when they are dreaming things up into a big project. They procrastinate. Since I ret urned to this area recently let's see if it I can knock it down to size, this time around.  I went into a certain area along a dirt road. My expectations were very low. In fact I remember henpecking myself about the choice of road and the waste of gasoline. It was a complete surprise to encounter some sexy and naked "structural geology."

The other day Coffee Girl and I were mountain biking on some fine land near Grants NM at the border of BLM and na tional forest . Even if huffing and puffing di dn't inform you that you were climbing, altitude leaves a track by transitioning from  high grasslands (with deser t charac teristics) to juniper shrubs to pinyon trees to ponder osa s. One area was spider webbed with old two- tracks that went into a firewood-cutting area. Naturally all of this exploring was free of silly encumbrances such as maps and gadgets. T rial and error. After many dead ends it was time to ask why I wasn't better at finding my own tracks: mountain bike tire tracks are easy to see. Why was reading tracks so interesting and important? It sounds like a boring topic. But I experienced such a strange near-obsession over it.   As alw ays, it is fun to stand somewhat apart from yourself and wonder what the heck was going on, and then explain it.  Having free time lets the mind become interested i