Occupation of Independence

A traveler can pass many historical markers along the highway.  How many do they stop in to visit?  Probably not that many. When going through Nevada I crossed the old "Californee"   Trail, Pony Express route, and first transcontinental telegraph route.  I did stop in and read the historical sign.  Did the government hire a new prose stylist?  It was interesting to read about.  What grabbed me was their emphasis on the sheer physicality and athleticism of the Pony Express riders. I thought about a friend who did all 800 miles of the Arizona Trail last year and is doing the Pacific Crest Trail this year.  I then drove into the foothills of the nearest mountain range to look for a place to camp overnight.  A hundred feet off the road was a herd of ten antelopes.  Didn't I once read on Wikipedia that they were the second fastest land mammal? Something about that juxtaposition of images made me smile, and it isn't that often that animals ma...

 I've made quite a bit of progress, moving north between the meridian lines of 110 degrees West and 114.  How does the land change, so that you know you are making progress?   There is more snow on the mountain tops, certainly.  But altitude-changes confuse your latitude-changes.   Despite going northish most of the time, time zone changes confuse the heck out of me and my little dog.  So far we have whiplashed between Arizona Time, to Mountain Daylight time, to Pacific Daylight, and now back to Mountain Daylight.  Finally, northern ID will become Pacific Daylight.  Does she eat dinner at 3:00 local time or Tummy Time?   Last year I made the mistake of going through Nevada on the western (CA) side of the state.  The grocery store and gas station prices were shocking.  This year I used the eastern side of the state.   The north/south ranges, with sagebrush/grass basins in between, are very attractive in sprin...

It really helps to have a way to deal with places that you used to love, but have gotten crowded or changed in some other negative way.  An outstanding example of this is southwestern Utah.   I still go through the area in autumn and sometimes in spring, more for practical reasons than for love. The all-important trick is to resist comparing it to how it used to be.  I make a mental game out of pretending I am looking at it for the first time. A second trick is break the experience into several components and imagine one or two of these components still being good.  That should keep you happy for a brief visit.  And that still counts as success. For instance I re-rode a two-track trail that is still my favorite after all these years.  The tourist masses haven't discovered it yet.  Or maybe they just avoid it.  Mountain bikers pretty much read from the same script, as written by the industry.  The industry wants bikers to lust for technical si...

Just a few miles from Nevada.  In this area I am curious about the pecking order of casino towns for show biz has-beens.  Perhaps Las Vegas, Laughlin, Mesquite, Wendover is the trajectory of descent.  Where   does Branson MO fit in that list? A few movies have been made about has-beens.  "Sunset Boulevard" is the classic.  But the whole topic is a bit of a "downer" so you can see why it isn't very popular as a theme. And yet, it is part of the Human Condition.  You can look across the pond to the pitiful posturing of European "powers" and have the same sort of thoughts.  Why can't Britain and France just accept being nice countries that used to be great powers?  What was so great about being a great power, and what is so bad about being a has-been? There doesn't seem to be an accepted career path for former great powers.  If only there were.  The Roman Empire did rather well, considering that the Eastern Empire survived in Constant...