Occupation of Independence

Silver City, NM. People who don't walk or mountain bike with dogs might not realize that they can be an asset in finding wildlife. They might think the dog would just chase off the wildlife or scare them away. But it's easy to forget the power of a canine's olfactory. They know something is up, when the human is oblivious. Coffee Girl disports with a Pronghorn Antelope, on sagebrush hills near Gunnison, CO Yesterday Coffee Girl, my kelpie, took off like a maniac. Soon I heard her barking in an uncharacteristic style. Actually that's a misnomer. Dogs bark in different styles for different prey. I was alarmed by this particular bark, so I ran over to her.  She had treed something. She had her front paws on a tall pinyon pine. (This area is full of the tallest pinyons I've ever seen.) She looked rather triumphant about it. I had to look carefully, but there it finally was: a coatimundi, the first I've ever seen. Interesting creatures. ______________

When the mountain bike frame cracked a couple days ago, I was resigned to the worst: a new frame or maybe even a new bike. It is too bad that the industry has gone to 5-year frame warranties. Annie, of Twin Sisters bicycle shop in Silver City NM, surprised me when she mentioned a local guy who has done TIG (tung sten inert gas) welding of aluminum bicycle frames. Here is the happy outcome : A TIG-welded aluminum bicycle frame repair job. His price was ridiculously low. Since the bicycle shop deprived itself of selling a new frame (or even a new bicycle) by providing this information, I went back and gave her a generous "finder's fee," which surprised and pleased her. A commenter, Brian, recommended welding a triangular gusset at the broken joint. I agree with him. In this case the welder chose not to do that because he thought he'd get too close to the carbon-fiber suspension parts (the little black swing arm, in the photo). Instead, he chose to build up

It wouldn't be so bad -- really -- to come home one day and find that your wife ran off with an itinerant revival preacher, that your pickup truck was towed and impounded, and that your dawg was run over. At least they'd write a country/western sawng about you. But who is going to give any sympathy to a mountain biker with a broken heart and a cracked frame? It cracked some time last week, just fore of the seat post/top tube weld. Sigh. With a little bit of analysis I think I know who the culprit is. I had ridden with a rear rack that was cantilevered off of the seat post, because you can't mount a standard rack on a full suspension bike, which bends after all. The rack warns people to put no more than 25 pounds on it. I put on less than half that. With 20/20 hindsight I suspect that their number was pulled out of thin air (or the next most imaginary source, computer modelling.) It would be too expensive for the rack manufacturer to do real-world, destru

Silver City, NM. During the Vietnam War protest era, the educational establishment sprouted new fads, including the one that the students should decide which subjects get studied and which don't. A relatively well-known educator countered at the time that if a teacher has spent decades of his adult life at his job and has learned nothing more than inexperienced children, then that teacher has wasted his life. I agree with that argument and think that it applies just as well to professional travelers and full-time RVers. Ahh but there is a problem. None of us really likes to listen to free advice from anybody. The minute you start giving advice you are presuming a type of superiority over other people. This is the emotional appeal of nominating yourself as "world improver" and social reformer, a la Ralph Nader or Mayor Bloomberg. Onto these two counter-currents we can add a third: as we age we might feel a concern for our "legacy." We are forced to acknowl

Silver City, NM. The other day I took a friend and his dog out for a "field trip" near my dispersed campsite. I soon became aware that I was futilely -- and a little hu morously -- proselytizing a man who prefers to stay in RV parks. Real RV camping of the dispersed, hookup-free kind has given me much pleasure and satisfaction over the years. It was not an original invention. I was influenced by other people to take it up. 'What goes around...' is the old adage. So why haven't I returned the favor to the world? The most brutal explanation is that this is pure snobbishness. RV park dwellers are the "ignorant masses," you see, and ol' Boonie doesn't want to waste his wisdom on them. Most of the time the other person is the male half of a couple. The minute I realize that there is a woman in the picture, I lose all motivation to preach boondocking. And rightly so .   But in this case the man had no such encumbrances. It's always confusi