Occupation of Independence

It is strange that an experienced RV boondocker would enter a new area and feel trepidation about finding a camping site. After all, how many times have I done this, by now? But I have certain prejudices against Colorado, and expected the national forests to be camper-unfriendly. I went campsite-shopping with the usual DeLorme and Benchmark atlas. As feared, some of the forest access was blocked by McMansions and private roads. At other times, I did find access, but the wireless signal was blocked by the topography. It becomes a game to visualize the topography relative to the cell tower. Wait a minute--I didn't know where the cell tower is. So it was a game to infer the location of the cell tower based on the number of bars my cell phone displayed at different locations, and based on that, to deduce the strength of the signal over the next hill. This is great fun; the cell tower, not yet quite real and visible, becomes a fiducial point which you use to visualize

The Little Poodle and I "paddled" upstream -- on the mountain bike -- along the popular Arkansas River, near "Byoona" Vista, CO. We saw one river rafting company after another. As luck would have it, we made it in time for their mass 'descension' of the Arkansas River. (If balloonists at the Albuquerque festival can have a mass ascension, then rafters in Colorado can have a mass descension.) It seemed like a documentary about the D-Day invasion of World War II. Actually it all happened quickly and smoothly. It has always been a poignant experience to watch people enjoying any water sport. I tried to connect with the water over the years, and nothing really worked. So I surrendered to my fate as a land mammal. The little poodle, not being a Labrador retriever, feels the same way. So we turned away from the river and biked into an area dominated by foothills of spheroidally-weathered granite. The road was actually just a dry wash of decompo