Occupation of Independence

It was strange going through the Moab commotion and feeling completely indifferent. All I could think about was leaving town quickly and finding something nearby that seemed meaningful to me. (That means something other than scenery, of course.) So I went to my favorite cliff system. The foothills leading up to the cliffs proper have the look of Mancos shale. Harmless if dry, but barren and ugly. And yet the land had some bright red flowers from hedgehog cacti. Here are the girls checking out the flowers: So there was something meaningful. It won't be long before I have to put Coffee Girl down. She began her career at the foot of these cliffs. Here she is, the first day I got her: It has been a wonderful career. I got her because my first dog, a miniature poodle called Pancho, was frightened by gun-crazed yahoos sighting in their rifles, just before hunting season. He took off, into the cliffs. After a week I accepted the fact that he was dead. So I adopted Coffee Girl. Of course,

  Moab, UT. Believe it or not I gave a bit of thought to actually camping in the Moab area. It was pre-peak-season and also unusually chilly. So perhaps there was some hope. Much to my surprise Moab was quite busy. That makes sense I suppose: most of the tourists are locked into reservations made months ago -- so fluctuations in the weather shouldn't affect them very much. After a ten minute stop at the grocery store, I happily left town. If you have ever made sneering-comments about touristy places, your listeners probably wearied quickly, and you yourself got a bad taste in your mouth. Complaining about tourists is a cliche' that makes you sound like a sour, elitist misanthrope. But you might not be this at all.  Consider another explanation: the human imagination is prone to being sentimental, romantic, and escapist. That is what makes travel interesting in the first place.  When you see thousands of tourists in your area, you can't help but see mass-consumers of bar-cod

  Isn't it something how a long-time full-time RVer can still feel a lump in their throat when they head north in spring or south in winter! It quite amazes me. It is proof that a camper like that is doing something right. This summer will be different for me. I have decided not to campground host in Colorado, because the camping situation in that state has become hectic and congested. In fact I will try to avoid the state altogether except for some fringe areas that aren't popular with the masses. Which is prettier: Idaho or Iowa? Foolish question? Not really. During the fire season you can't really see Idaho -- there is no point in being there. I have decided to avoid the northwestern states during their wildfire season, 15 July -- 30 September. For the first time in many years I am going to the Northwest early in the summer --- like right now! In late July I will head south and hopefully find some monsoonal rain. The southwestern states are already having fires and smok

  I watched an interview of Glenn Greenwald on Tucker Carlson the other night. Greenwald made a powerful point about Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter as a real threat to the Deep State. Their ability to censor the internet is an awesome weapon. Why would the Deep State allow anybody to tinker with it? Greenwald went on to say that they will try to "destroy" Musk because of this. He said no more on the interview, and he didn't imply that "destroy" meant physical destruction. But why shouldn't it include physical destruction? Presumably Musk flies on private jets -- they can be made to fall out of the sky. Then the FAA comes to look for the 'black box' for some clue as to what caused the crash. And when they do, what if an official from the CIA or FBI has already been there first? Don't such organizations have the capability to fake a black box? If somebody raises questions about irregularities in the crash-investigation, the awesome power of in

It's easy to stay glued to war videos from the Ukraine, these days. For me, many of them are found on the Telegram platform. Sometimes BitChute. What has amazed me is how little information and understanding are actually conveyed in a video, at least when it is unprofessional or made under duress. I wonder: which side (Russian or Ukrainian) am I even looking at? What is the message or point that is being made by this video? So an unidentifiable jet plane just whizzed across the sky -- it barely shows on the screen. Can't they keep the camera from jerking around so much? Sometimes a caption does more good than a jumble of dancing pixels. Would it be too utopian to dream of a caption without military acronyms? Some of these videos lend themselves to radio more than television-style video. They are just talking heads in a studio -- there is nothing to look at, so why does it need to be a video? What a waste of bandwidth! For this type of video it would be an improvement to put a s