Occupation of Independence

Artists, artists everywhere! From the northern Rio Grande Valley, Sante Fe, Taos, Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch, and into Colorado, the whole region is infested with artists. I'm even squatting on the driveway providing driveway security services at the home of a couple Colorado artists. You'd think that art was a major part of the economy. Since when did Americans become so arts-oriented? If a traveler takes travel seriously -- that is, if travel is more than trivial sightseeing and generating digital postcards -- he needs to ask: what is this place good for? What is special about it? Then he needs to do some thinking about a topic that the location brings up. I reread Tolstoy's What is Art? (*) Before showing some juicy quotes from that book, let's first try to imagine an elderly Tolstoy -- with his beard and earnestness, now an ex-novelist, working to reform Christianity, and totally outside the intellectual mainstream of Europe -- walking through an art festival in

...comin' home, to a place he'd never been before. Or something like that. Being back on the road I am mindful of doing things better; hence all the preaching about being flexible and avoiding rigid habits when traveling. There is a fair bit of adaptation necessary here in Ouray, although the deck was stacked in my favor by the generosity of my "clients", Mark and Bobbie Johnson, over at Box Canyon Blog . When walking the sidewalks in downtown Ouray, it is fun to imagine what various people like best about a scenic mountain town. I almost feel sorry for the bourgeois matrons from a big city; they must be bored to tears with nature and scenery, after a few minutes. When I watch them it is always with an impish smirk on my face. Think of the classic Disney movie, Homeward Bound (The Incredible Journey) , in which a cat, Sassie (voiced over by Sally Fields), and two male dogs try to make a long distance journey over the mountains to get back to their people. At o