Occupation of Independence

This year, June in the Southwest is living up to its reputation of monotonous, cloudless skies and fierce Dry Heat. Normally I would be miserable during weather like this, and look forward to the monsoons later in the summer. But not this year; winter really did cure me of piteous whining about dry heat. All it takes to enjoy an afternoon like today is a small gift of shade, sacred Sombra. The breeze does the rest. 'Wind' and 'spirit' (breath) have quite a history together, which a good dictionary or Wikipedia can tell you about. I've tried to shelter the Wind from its many assailants and detractors. If my eloquence failed, then seek your own in spir ation in a chair, outdoors. The wind coats and cools every inch of your skin, like a mountain stream does to a rock in its middle.    Remember when you were a kid and trying to exact revenge on a sibling or playmate; Mother would shake her finger at you and say, "Two wrongs don't make a right." But in

Western Colorado. As much as I love afternoon clouds during the monsoons, autumn rains are completely different. So I fled the upper Gunnison River valley for the torrid lowlands of Montrose (6000 feet) and the Uncompaghre River Valley. But it was stormy down here, too. East of the river there are shale badlands which turn into a quagmire when it rains. I have written before of how much the right book or movie can combine with the right location. With the San Juan Mountains in the background, this seemed like the time to watch "True Grit."  Soon I found a low BLM mesa to camp on, about thirty miles from where much of the mountain scenery of True Grit was shot. At a couple times during the movie, I stepped out of my trailer to admire specific mountains and rocks that were prominent in scenes in the movie. A couple days later another autumn storm blasted the San Juans, as seen from my RV boondocking campsite: The next day they were snow capped. I must ad

When traveling I try to experience a book, rather than merely read it. With some luck a traveler's location can add something chemical and explosive to the book. This happened to me recently in Leadville, CO. I was camped by a national forest road that was on the race course of two separate races that featured the most amazing athletes. My mind drifted off to Greek Olympic athletes. I picked up a book on Greek mythology, and was amazed to find myself actually interested in that silly nonsense, for the first time. Other things contributed to this chemical reaction, such as monsoon clouds accumulating before their mid-afternoon schedule, and lightning strikes so close to my trailer that they sounded like a shotgun blast outside the trailer door. So I was willing to play along with reading about Zeus the Cloud-Gatherer and Thunderbolt-Thrower. If this seems too whimsical for the reader, remember that your mind and body are the same as the homo sapiens of a few thou

Eighty percent of the discomfort felt by a full time RV boondocker occurs during summer. It needn't be so. Step One is to stop going north in summer, as counter-intuitive as that is. Going north will only keep you cool during the shoulder seasons. Would that they lasted longer than a couple weeks! Shame on me for taking so long to realize that latitude is a secondary variable and that altitude is preeminent. Through a geographical accident, most of the high altitude towns are in the Southwest. It's easy to underestimate the pleasantness of the southwestern monsoon season, from early July to mid-September. Even before the afternoon sky-and-cloud show, the higher humidity mutes the sun. By noon cumulus clouds have formed foamy white tops and darkling bottoms. Their bottoms darken as the vertical development continues. Finally they flocculate into a thundershower -- transient, local, and topographic. This praise of clouds and rain must seem surreal to those of the P

When gasoline started getting expensive in the mid-Aughts, I stopped dragging my trailer to the Northwest in the summer. Would I really be able to stay cool in the Southwest in the summer? Soon after praising my high-mesa campsite near Santa Fe, we were hit by a violent thunderstorm. I should have realized the edge of a mesa is a vulnerable location. We abandoned the trailer and went to the van, thinking that it was electrically grounded better. At least it didn't have any propane tanks. If we had been in the trailer, the little dog would have been hiding behind the Thetford toilet. In the van, he just sat on my lap and quivered. I can't help believing that the standard theories about the domestication of wolves are wrong, and that it was thunderstorms that drove the Wolf to Man and the cave. New Mexico is having an unusually wet and stormy early-summer. Normally it's oppressively cloudless, and so arid that it sucks the spit right out of your mouth. Finger tips a

It's hard to believe what happened on my first day of blogging. But this is a true story... Central New Mexico. We visited an old Spanish church at an Indian pueblo, built in the 1600's. It is easy here to imagine yourself far away in time and place from the drab uniformity of modern America. Why, we might as well be watching the movie, El Cid, with Charlton and Sophia. Other than the Fortress of old Quebec City, where can you experience anything like this in North America? This fine old church was starting to redeem a day that had not started too well. We found plenty of fine, high-altitude land and beautiful old ruins. But there was barely a grocery store to be found--or a wireless internet signal. So we continued on our way to the old imperial outpost of Santa Fe. Halfway between Albuquerque and Santa Fe I suddenly realized that my worries about staying high were over. I hadn't checked the weather this morning because there was no internet. So it was pu