Occupation of Independence

Every year at this time of the year I look forward to reading the travel blogs by people mountain biking the Great Divide Route (GDR). (Do not confuse this with backpacking the Continental Divide Trail. ) The GDR is a selection of dirt national forest and BLM roads, and occasionally paved highways, that stays close to the continental divide. The northern terminus is Banff park in Alberta, whereas the southern terminus is the New Mexican/Mexican border at Antelope Wells. Yes I know, some readers think I dislike travel blogs. But there are some that really do involve adventure. It is a great thing to find them and read them. For instance, if you read the blog of this group getting ready to mountain bike the GDR, you will probably be infected with their anticipation. An opportunity is being missed here. A person might love the scenery and mountain biking, but dislike the tent camping and the need to find water, biking too many miles per day, biking during monsoonal afternoon hail

Once again my internet browsing is wallowing in the gutter. Perhaps it would be better to say that I am bored to death. Blame laziness. It seems like most blogs write about the same thing every day. Political blogs and travel blogs are the worst of the worst. Travel blogs could be replaced by a computer program. Indeed, maybe somebody should sell an "app" that automatically puts travel posts on "your" blog. How would anybody know? The result might be a blog with frie nds and followers in the thousands.  Let's have some fun: what would today's blog title be if an app was writing it. "An Exclusive Paradise Adventure in the Grand Canyon, for Free, Topped Off with a Beautiful Sunset!" Nah, too long. Perhaps we are so trained as mass consumers that our information-grazing habits imitate our consumption. Thus we fall into blogs that offer tired formulas and repetition. My excuse for being so lazy is that one only has so much time, there are too m