Occupation of Independence

Maybe Wayne was right the other day about beauty being available even in towns and cities. For instance the Mobile Kodger and I were walking through Bisbee AZ yesterday on our sojourn to New Mexico. Old mining towns -- even if they are tourist traps -- put me in a good mood regarding towns, cities, and -- dare I say -- even people. And I needed the advantage since I was walking through a funky town with the inimitable and incorrigible Kodger. Those who have never had this experience might have difficulty imagining it. It took a few blocks for the Kodger to reach his stride. We started downtown, in the high-rent district: art galleries, gewgaws, baubles, trinkets, and bourgeois matrons. There really is a sad and noble beauty to the silent suffering of  any husband who is in tow in a place like this. The most humane and sensible matrons leave their suffering saints at home and do Bisbee with "the girls". In fact it might be a good idea for any man who is seriously cons

It's the music in the grocery store that brings it on. My city nausea, that is. When finishing a long stay on raw land and heading into the city (Sierra Vista, AZ), it makes sense to see it as an opportunity for a mental adventure. Pretend that you are seeing city-ways for the first time. Take nothing for granted. Why not let yourself be astounded and amused by it all? Anyway, that's what I try to do. Then I walked into a grocery store and had my central nervous system attacked by unusually loud and conventionally ugly music. More than anything else it's the ugliness of popular music that makes me think this society is doomed -- or at least, that I want it to be doomed, so that something better replaces it.  Does real camping get a person so used to quietness that noise pollution seems worse back in the hive? It's possible. Then again, this is a military town, so maybe noise levels are higher with all the young bucks around. A Stoic sage would come back to the

It might seem like a minor achievement to anybody else, but sleeping to dawn -- and even to sunrise! -- made me think my visitors were miracle workers. It's been a year since I visited these two mobile scoundrels. Glenn of toSimplify.net and the Mobile Kodger are here, sharing a zillion acre campsite with me. We sit out at night under the stars and solve the world's problems, after which we move on to explaining the riddles of the universe, the meaning of life, and the best rig design. A later bedtime makes for delicious sleep to dawn.  Back when I was a newbie I was actually camped at one of those dreadful Escapees' parks. I went to an evening campfire, which surprisingly wasn't against municipal code or against the RULES or something else, and an older camper came out and joined in. He said that evening campfires used to be a really big thing with RV campers, but then satellite television came along. These evening conversations with Glenn and the Kodger are rea

"My wife and I have been planning on becoming full time RVers. What's been your greatest challenge?" That's what the solo bicycle tourer asked. He was resting at the coffee shop in Patagonia AZ, tweaking his fully-loaded touring bicycle. The answer was easy: "demographics." Since he was a married man, the brutally truthful answer to his question would have been, "Your wife." But I wasn't in the mood for being that brutal with a pleasant stranger. Then I tried to pry him away from his pre-planned route along sometimes-shoulderless highways and tempt him into riding on dirt roads through magnificent high grasslands. Of course there was a disadvantage: it would put him behind schedule. I don't do "schedule." I doubt that he followed this advice. It's a good reason why I could never really relate to the culture of long distance bicycle touring. I have a penchant for latching onto these soloists. _______________________________