Occupation of Independence

Moments like this are so rare for me that they really stand out. (And of course they beg for explanation.) I was outside a coffee shop in Gunnison CO, and was enjoying being around the human race, and being in a city. It was amusing to watch full-sized, four wheel drive pickups try to parallel park in front of the restaurants. A few college kids are back in town early, for the fall session. Every few minutes a pair of remarkably trim and tanned Colorado girl legs would prance by; it made me glad for sunglasses. The bicycle culture is in full blossom in Gunnison. What magic the right bicycle can perform on an overburdened matron: she sloughs off 20 years as she jumps on her townie-cruiser, in her dress, and pedals away with a few items from the store in the bike's wicker basket.  Of course Coffee Girl is enjoying the parade as much as I am. The best results are obtained when I am inside the cafe, since that allows passersby to approach her without inhibition. I look out the wi

It has happened to most people, several times. You buy a fine jacket and then the plastic zipper craps-off two years later. In the past, "wardrobe malfunction" in the zipper department has followed washing/drying the jacket. Is overheating in the dryer to blame? Maybe I should machine wash the jacket, followed by "gentle" heat, or air-drying since temperature controls at public lavamaticas seldom work.  Please don't tell me that a jacket (with a zipper) needs to dry-cleaned. This wouldn't be such a big problem if you lived in one town all year. Eventually you would find somebody. But when you are traveling, it is a much bigger problem. It is infuriating to think that the world wants you to scrap such an expensive jacket just because a couple cubic millimeters of YKK Delrin plastic has gotten dinged. It happened again, just a few days ago. It wasn't as infuriating as the previous time: after making an excellent winter parka last for 20 years, I ha

Well, I certainly failed to "meet spec" on the recent cold mudhole debacle in Colorado. Yes, it was disgusting and uncomfortable -- but so what?  Let's see if I can redeem myself today. But first, consider how absurd the situation was. It was cloudy and rainy and only got into the 50s (F), even in mid-day. I was wearing thermal underwear and a skull cap, but just couldn't get warm. In August!  I refused to go out to the tow vehicle and retrieve my winter parka; I also refused to turn on my propane heater. Finally I crawled into bed in mid-day and watched "Lawrence of Arabia", so that the mere sight of hot sand and deserts and camels would cheer me up. What is valuable or meaningful about mud? Perhaps mud is the best example we have of true progress, in the form of gravel roads. It is easy to look up the date that certain gadgets or machines were "invented." (This is usually a bit misleading, since a working thing is a combination of technologie

Gunnison, CO. There's always something new to learn in the travel racket, or at least, to accentuate. Camping in the mud has never been my favorite thing, and most dog owners would say the same. But wait, wasn't I just praising the ability of the human imagination to turn any situation into one of Noble Suffering? And I meant it, too. But I draw the line at flying insects and mud. Mud is not noble. You might wonder why I had to crash in the photo above, with all that "dry" land between the two tire ruts. The photo doesn't show how crowned that middle area was. And speaking of crowned... I couldn't take the forest mud anymore. I had to head in to town, just for the pavement. Towards the end of the day, it appeared dry enough to attempt an escape. It was only 200 yards downhill to the main road. I was patting myself on the back for having the foresight to camp uphill of the escape route , at this time of the year. On the way down, the tow vehicle and

Gunnison, CO. There were two pairs of those beady eyes. I had turned back just to see how much work it would be to climb back up the edge of the severely eroded laccolith. And there they were: two coyotes, with their acute powers of observation. They moved down the rocky edge as I did. Were they following -- stalking -- Coffee Girl and me? Surprisingly, she didn't sense the two coyotes up the ledge. Coyotes are just 35-40 pound dogs, with the same weapons that a domestic dog has. But I have learned the hard way what kind of damage they can do, with their sneakiness. Even worse, they were hunting as a pair; I almost always see solo coyotes. An instinct of extreme protectiveness kicks in, at times like this -- protectiveness for my kelpie, Coffee Girl, that is.  They might have some tricks up their sleeves by acting as a pair of killers. Recall the fate of the Australian hunter in the original "Jurassic Park." Remember when he took his hunting rifle out to match wits