Occupation of Independence

Most hikers are probably fond of that moment in a hike when you're starting to wonder if you're ever going to get to the top. But of course the experience would be boring without the voluntary suffering of it all. Then you see some blue sky peaking through, so you must be getting ready to crest. Recently Coffee Girl and I finally made it over the top of Book Cliffs, which my little poodle valiantly surmounted four years ago. I can't be sure that he used this trail, but it's the only one. It was 1600 feet of altitude gain. It's counter-intuitive how the high-altitude side of a cliff ramps up the edge, and then falls precipitously. The Mogollon Rim (in Arizona) does this as well. The top of Book Cliffs was fun to explore; it was crossed by more ravines than I thought; it wasn't just a flat mesa-top.

You have to admire the constitution of campers who can actually sleep in a noisy parking lot in town. Do engines ever get shut off? You get to enjoy trains, boom cars, loudspeakers on the pole lights, semi-trucks pulling up in the middle of the night, and perhaps worst of all, predatory strafing of your RV by the parking lot Zamboni. So why do it? There are practical advantages such as minimizing driving while accomplishing shopping errands. And there are plenty of $30 per night RV parks that are half as loud as a free parking lot. There are tricks in parking lots that will get you a few hours of sleep: 1) It is surprising how quiet a semi-truck can be if you are parked aft of its trailer, rather than sideways-adjacent to the engine and Thermo-King refrigerator. 2) It's also surprising how restful it can be to sleep next to a busy freeway, since the sound is so steady. 3) White noise helps quite a bit too. You can use music, a DVD movie, or whatever. 4) Stay up late at night an