Occupation of Independence

  Some local people talked to me at camp, the other day.  I wish this kind of thing happened more often.    One fellow had an electric car that he talked about quite a bit.   I was camped on some BLM land that didn't get many visitors.  The locals were not suspicious of me -- well, maybe a little.  They seemed curious about me.  Or maybe they were flattered that their area was finally appreciated by a 'camper/tourist.' I instinctively moved away from these mountains when I was looking for a place to camp.  It is nice to stay close enough to see them, of course, but I don't want to be too close. I found a nice area of green BLM hills, and camped right at a topographic saddle, where it was flat.  The cellphone signal ended on the back side of the saddle. You can just barely see my trailer as a small white rectangle towards the center of the photo, above.  My little dog and I had walked up the two-track road that you can see in the foreground.  These hills can be big.   Si

Are the best RVs the most boring RVs?  I tend to think so.  It is advantageous to own a rather ordinary machine that everybody knows how to work on and needs replacement parts that are easy to get.   But not all repairs are standard, bolt-on parts like radiators, spark plugs, or alternators.  Just think of how many times the automobile's door is opened and closed!, and how high the stress is on metal parts. You have to struggle harder to get independent repair shops to work on door problems since they are considered "body parts."   They might send you to the auto dealership or to a body shop, where prices are astronomical.  I wish I knew more about getting body parts from one of the online salvage parts distributors. Anyway, after the last post's problem was solved, I got involved with the next problem: poor door-closing of the cargo ("barn doors") on the starboard side of the van.   I had ignored the problem too long.  It wasn't going to go away, by its

Normally dust devils are mere curiosities.  On this warm spring day east of Reno NV,    I can see four dust devils at the same time.  The largest one is 50 feet in diameter.  One blew past my trailer a few minutes ago.  It was actually a little scary. Recently I have come close to getting smacked in more ways than one.  Have you ever thought about what would happen to you and other people if you were driving at high speeds in multi-lane traffic in some gawd-awful city, and your engine suddenly died electrically? I was in a safe place recently, when my van suddenly went electrically dead, but a few minutes earlier I had been on multi-lane Interstate 80 on the east side of Reno.  With no electricity in the van,  I would have started slowing down in a middle lane, with just enough strength to steer.  But where would I have steered to?!  After all, without electrical power you cannot  run the brake lights, emergency hazard lights, or blinkers.  And I was pulling a trailer!  A bad acciden

There is nothing in this old world of ours that beats chilly morning air, dry, sunny, and calm.   But wait!  There is something better: add basin-and-range scenery with snowy mountain tops and snow-free lowlands. That is what I am experiencing right now on this early spring trip through Nevada.  In the past I think I underestimated this state because the north-south mountain ranges are steep with poor road access.  That makes for poor camping and mountain biking, if you like biking on land where you get to use lots of gears. So just use the mountain ranges for eye-candy, and then camp and bike on the lowlands, which can be flattish.  Maybe this should have been obvious, but if you make the mistake of staying in the Southwest too long into spring, the lowlands (4500 feet altitude) of Nevada are too hot by the time you get to them. Prices are confiscatory away from the handful of Walmart towns.  So far, I haven't figured out how to beat the system in that regard.  Perhaps it is best