Occupation of Independence

Durango, CO. The reader might have noticed that I have been on a horse kick lately. A cynic would say that this is just a temporary romantic escapist fantasy by somebody who doesn't know what he is talking about. At any rate, it is time to recall the old saying about, 'be careful what you wish for.' When my kelpie and I came home the other day we found the area taken over by huge horse trailers and their occupants. Some kind of event/competition was taking place nearby. That was good news.  What wasn't such great news was that I couldn't really go inside my trailer. The first thing I thought about was what a horseman told me some time ago: "There is such a thing as horse sense, but it's not necessarily the horse that's got it." That would be a pretty tight fit for me and the dog between the action end of the horse and the door. Since I know nothing of the do's and don'ts around horses, it seemed like a good idea to find the hors

It's a challenge to think about choosing a motor vehicle that will keep you happy for years, especially for a full time RVer who pulls a trailer. Last post I inserted a quote from Tocqueville about a historian needing to flip back and forth between top-down and bottom-up thinking.  I ran across another illustration of this same principle, this time in the milieu of movie-making. The director's job is to make sure the actor understands his character's situation and motivation. But too much talk of that type is not helpful. For instance, in "The Count of Monte Cristo" (circa 2000), director Kevin Reynolds talks about this issue, in his commentary track: I've been fortunate. I haven't had too many actors that are like that. The main thing I try to do if they start wanting to talk about [a scene] in great generalities is to cut the conversation off.  I say, "We've gotta roll." And I'll give them a specific note. Somehow they'll pro

Choosing a motor vehicle is a big part of most people's lives. This is even more true for RVers who tow trailers. But there's a lot more to this decision than picayune "practical" details, which could drown the writer and the reader if they didn't spend some time looking at the big picture. Conversely, if all we did was float along in the clouds of platitudes, hackneyed political theories, and socioeconomic statistics, the situation would become mind-numbing and sterile. What we need to do is slosh back and forth between the bottoms-up and the top-down approaches. By luck I happened upon a juicy and profound quote by Tocqueville -- yes, Alexis de Tocqueville of "Democracy in America" fame. (I only recommend volume 2.)  But the quote was from another book of his, "The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville," written a couple years after the communistic (and aborted) revolution of 1848, which he experienced first-hand in Paris. (The remainder

It's easy to miss opportunities in Colorado because it is just too easy to be sucked into the stereotypical postcards, such as an alpine lake at the foot of mountains. Such things are nice of course, but when you've seen 'em, you've seen 'em. To enjoy landscapes for any length of time you need to branch out into new directions -- something that takes more imagination on your part.  Besides simple laziness, a middle-class traveler has the additional problem that his entire mindset is geared towards being a mass-consumer; and scenery tourism is just one more form of bar-coded  "consumption" to him. Most people, like me, also need to fight against a complacent surrender to "the medium is the message."  The three-dimensional attractions of the desert (or grasslands or ridgey hills) do not show up so well in a two-dimensional medium like photography. The reward for this kind of cantankerous independence is a greater appreciation for what is on