Occupation of Independence

 Northwestern Arizona.  Years ago, I pretty much gave up on trying to talk to "fellow campers."  It didn't seem like we had much in common, my activities are unpopular, and I decided that dogs are better company.  So my dog and I went on a bike ride today and tried to find a connected loop.  The route worked quite well. But something strange and unexpected happened.  I had three high quality conversations on the route.  The other people seemed to enjoy hearing me and vica-versa.  One fellow was from Scotland.  In fact, the Hebrides.  When I started talking about the travel book by Johnson and Boswell to the Hebrides, he really lit up. How nice it would be if this sort of thing happened more often.  But I think it is right to not expect it to happen, and not try to make it happen .  When it wants to happen, it will.  Just accept it as a free gift of the gods. There was some sad news too.  The other day I saw an SUV pu...

 Occasionally I ridicule tourists on this blog.  Once in a great while.  So I felt pretty ashamed to surrender to panhandling burros , yesterday.  It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been systematically victimized by those 'mother dog asks for help' meme-videos on You Tube.  So when the mother burro approached my camper with two cyootsie-wootsie offspring in tow, I finally succumbed.  Altogether the herd reached five burros. Had I just created a monster?  Would the moochers be back the next day, looking for their next welfare check? In the middle of night their noise woke me up.  It was more than braying and hee-hawing.  Perhaps they were fighting to get to the head of the line.  There were scratching or scuffing sounds.  They had knocked over my laundry bucket to get at the water.  The lid restricted the leakage of water, so the burro was trying to knock the lid loose, I guess.  Finally I got out of bed and shined a f...

 Everybody likes wild burros and so do I.  But they represent something more than cuteness.  Only a tough and admirable creature could make a living in such a gawd-forsaken place.  Maybe it isn't so far down to the Colorado River for water, but what is there to eat around here. Rubble?  Try to imagine their lives.  Every bit of effort you make in that direction pulls you one step above the average tourist. And yet, ironically, these noble creatures work the tourist trade shamelessly.   They virtually block traffic on the highway, and won't let you pass until you have "paid up."  The smartest ones are the mothers who bring their offspring into town and charm the socks off the Japanese tourists.  It's a living. But what is going through the burro's mind?  Are they degraded and humiliated?  Surely they must look off into the distance, and pine for something better, like Ferdinand the Duck in the movie, "Babe:" "...it eats away a...

 What a difference a cold north wind can make to Arizona .  It dissolves the horribleness of the state.  After a summer of only a small bit of walking, this cold wind makes hiking the best thing to do.  Sometimes, the wind even disappears because of the arroyo banks or canyon walls.  But I love the way the wind hits your skin and charges up your soul-battery.  As usual we walked on a loop through arroyos that I wasn't too sure of.   The little dog had an easy time running on the smoothed pebbles in an arroyo. There was a surprisingly large blotch of lichen on a north-facing wall along the little canyon.  Perhaps the strangest example I've ever seen.  There were more barrel cactuses around than I remembered.  What handsome plants they are! Plants can grow in the most unlikely places: This kind of hiking is unpopular.  Most people look up brand-name hikes on the apps, I guess.  They usually go to the top of a mountain --...