Occupation of Independence

More than once I have warned the reader against the under-rated scourge of the Early Bedtime Syndrome. I took the Fabian approach to vanquishing it, and now have the proud and happy task of telling you that I have officially beaten it. (Note the present perfect tense of the verb.) Postponing bedtime by a minute or two per day worked at the beginning. Then I plateau-ed at one minute every two days. I actually recorded it on a calendar. Bedtime is now beyond 2200 hours. At 2230 I'll probably back off and leave well enough alone. It was not easy, and at times, I attacked the problem with a desperate heroism. Even if that is a silly and pretentious way to put it, it is still true that I had to imagine it so, in order to succeed. I was willing to use any technique that worked -- even going so far as doing housework when I started fading! When you wake up in the morning and see Dawn, you can't help but feel that all is right with the world, and that your day has great potenti

Rumors are floating around that several RV bloggers were recently involved in an outdoorsy comedy-of-errors: a hike full of mistakes and misadventures. Oh sure it seemed like that at the time. But without any undue contrarianism or facetiousness, I'm here to tell you that it was a great success, and is worthy of emulation. There is one bit of facetiousness that I would like to play with: instead of ridiculing the "Naturalistic Fallacy" , I would like to pretend that I agree with it, that is, that everything "natural" is "good", and unnatural is bad.  I am going to argue that misadventure during an outing, whatever be the cause, brings on a more natural -- and better -- experience.  Consider first how unnatural hiking is. What natural purpose does it serve? None that I can see.  Is this not ironic, considering the demographic and self-image of hikers? They see themselves as environmentally-correct nature lovers. They think that their sport is the