Occupation of Independence

On the last post I left out the biggest advertisement of all, for Idaho: the roads and trails aren't littered with loose rubble. That is no small thing to a mountain biker or hiker. The reason, I suppose, is that, here in the North, there is enough rain and vegetation to produce the mouldering bio-mass that eventually turns into soil, unlike the Southwest that I am used to. (I am so sick of that brown rubble, I could almost puke...) __________________________________ Something happened the other day that seemed like a small miracle. It would have been unnoticeable until a few months ago. Somebody shook my hand! I hope I didn't tense up, defensively, and make her feel bad. But it has been so long... Now where did this "retrograde" (and politically incorrect) behavior happen? In a small town in Idaho. I had approached the owner of the laundromat and coffee shop, and told her that I was an RVer, and only met two laundromats per year that I liked, and hers was one of them

There have been pleasant surprises this summer in Idaho. It has been comfortable at elevations of 5000 feet; elevations in that range are relatively easy to find. (Anyone who has spent a lot of time on the Colorado Plateau would expect a lowly 5000 feet to be hot.) Secondly, insects have not been the problem that I thought they would be. Of course when you don't arrive until July, the odds are in your favor.  Early summer is buggier. Wildfires have not been a problem this summer, so far at least. Once again, credit some good luck. I never would have expected to get much pleasure from looking at needle trees, since I still think that trees are meant to have leaves. But the needle trees here are so tall and straight that I just have to admire them. Besides, they produce dense shade which is one of the best things that life has to offer.   The scenery is excellent here, an important secondary interest to me. I took very easily to the bizarre notion of water flowing in the creeks and

Since I can't figure out how to edit gadgets on the new "improved" Blogger. And I really hate new improvements with software. New Meadows, ID.  Now reading: Sharpe's Honor #7, by Bernard Cornwell. For the first time in the longest time -- and maybe the first time ever -- I stood outside the work area and watched a mechanic repair my bicycle. He found out why the symptom reappeared, after it was supposedly fixed by a bicycle shop in another town. (And he was already familiar with the reputation of that other shop.) I asked him questions and learned a lot about how to fix this problem "in the field". (Traveling long distances to a bicycle shop can be ridiculous.) This was a great experience -- one that you rarely get because of the sign that says, "Insurance Regulations Do NOT Permit Customers in Shop Area, " or the usual joke about how much per hour you pay if you leave the premises, how much you pay if you watch, how much you pay if you give advic

It has been years since I experienced 90 F temperatures, so I was worried about taking my dog in the van for an appointment, in mid-day. But just driving by a shaded city park and seeing kids adapting to the heat wave, put me in a good frame of mind. More than merely adapting to it -- they were playing with it. While waiting for some routine service on the van, Coffee Girl and I went across the street and enjoyed some shade from the building and an iced coffee, my first of the summer. I turned a dish of water over on her head and rubbed it in. Dog hair can be a great evaporative-cooler-mat! Why don't I dunk her head in water all the time, in summer? It happens so many times: having a dog brings me back to childhood and nostalgia. A heat wave in summer contributes to that mindset.  I wish I understood the "ice" economy in the America of 1900. Something about storing it underground, surrounded by straw? Surely that didn't last all summer. It was a great day -- at le

I have been surprised (and disappointed) by how subservient many people are to the lockdown, face diapers, etc. But the political angle of this has been talked about enough. There is a different perspective that might go a ways to explaining craven obedience. Think back a few decades to when the digital clock became standard on most nightstands. I always disliked them, and wondered why people put up with them. Circa 1970. Then TVs acquired remote controls, with dozens of tiny buttons. Soon VCRs jumped on the bandwagon, and of course had their own remote control, so now you could wrestle with two of the damn things at the same time. On and on it went: a PC (computer) on every office desk, and more and more people did office wussie work for a living, as America became post-industrial and bureaucratic. Then you started doing your taxes on software such as TurboTax. In fact you did everything on the computer. It became strange to ever touch pen and paper. But the reductio ad