Occupation of Independence

I am not used to weather.  In the interior West there isn't much weather -- not like, say, the Gulf Coast.  Rainstorms have become a distant memory to me. That is why it was so shocking to get hit by a thunderous hailstorm at 5 a.m.  The aluminum skin of a cargo trailer makes the hail sound terrible, but a third-of-an-inch-diameter hail does not actually do damage.  It accumulated on the ground to a depth of one inch. Then the sky would crack open for awhile.  An hour later we would get blasted again.      I felt rather exposed to lightning, near the edge of a mesa 3000 feet above town level. I had been careful to camp on a gravelled road -- not a mere dirt road.  So escape was possible.   This experience only happens a couple times per year.  It is easy to walk around, dodging mud puddles, and feel a healthy-mindedness about the sun.  A lovely appreciation of the sun.

Why did it take so many years to learn how to warm up in the morning, after camping through a chilly night?  Shrugging the neck and shoulders works wonders.  I have already done that a few times this autumn. Consider this humble accomplishment as encouragement to find other ways to improve winter camping.  What else have I overlooked?  Every autumn I talk tough about camping in cooler locations in order to avoid the overcrowded camping locations in the Southwest that are known to everybody.  And then I surrender to the inevitable: the same old places, with a van every 50 feet slamming their door 50 times a day; or a giant 5th wheel trailer, with its Harbor Freight 6 Kilowatt generator roaring away.  Gawd, I hate neighbors when camping. Every winter, the superb weather of the lower Southwest grabs me.  It is still possible to find camping that is tolerable, if not exactly inspiring. At least I have surrendered on a reluctance to use propane heat.  ...

It must be a real disappointment to most new RVers to see how suddenly the world snaps from hot to cold.  Most people probably fantasize about moving their wheeled house to make autumn last for a couple months.  They would like to think the perfect temperature can be dialed-in by moving their RV 100 miles at a time. But planet Earth doesn't work like that.  I was astonished by that fact during my first winter of RVing, and it still disappoints me, after all these years.  Currently I am surrendering on my planned slow-migration southeast to the Green River and then south along it.   In the West a slow migration south is undermined even more by the higher altitudes you find along the way. Can lemonade be made from these lemons?  Perhaps not -- if practical travel plans alone are considered.  But a general can lose a battle and still hope to win the war.  Tactical versus strategic.  Short term versus long term. Analogous to that, travel can...

  Caitlin Johnstone has been on fire lately, making fun of the seriousness the presidential election is regarded with.  She doesn't see the big deal about whether America becomes the enabler of genocide in Gaza with a MAGA hat on, or whether it goes on as the enabler of genocide with a rainbow flag.  She is right.  All this election will settle is who the next Zionist-in-Chief will be. What if there were a candidate who described Israel as 'Satan's chosen people?'  Would that be considered hate speech?  Indeed, it  is  -- against Satan. No matter who the new president is, America will drown in debt, suffer years of high inflation, and fight wars around the world in the name of 'freedom and democracy,' as it becomes less free and democratic every day. Is that too pessimistic?  When a country as prominent and large as the USA can only produce candidates like these two fools, how can anything be too pessimistic?