Occupation of Independence

It is a good idea to go off on short trips before a long one. Since I haven't done enough of that and since the trailer has barely moved in three years, I feel a bit nervous. But preparation can get a bit tiresome after awhile. At some point you just have to jump in and hang on. Off we go, to the north, through Glenwood. It's hot there, so there won't be any stopping until Reserve, NM. Got to stay above 6000 feet, and 7000 would be more like it. Maybe Datil or Pie Town tonight. So, I'll jerk the cord out of the utility post, and off we go...

A cycling website that I visit frequently mentioned the results of the Leadville 100 mountain bike race. Sigh. Just hearing of Leadville (use Search this Blog on the left) brought back some powerful memories for me. For the first time I started getting emotional about getting back on the road; until now it was hard to believe that I was really leaving tomorrow. A week after the Leadville race, still in the mid-August, I used to notice Leadville (10,200 feet high) getting cooler and foggier. Summer was on the wane, and it was time to start a slow retreat towards winter camp. Many high places in Colorado would still be good until late September. No matter how many years I was traveling, the autumn migration kept bringing a lump to my throat. And now I'm "migrating" north in mid-August? Everything is upside-down.

Here is my first post back on the Verizon network. Gee, I remember it being faster when I dropped the service three years ago. My campground's WiFi is actually twice as fast, even though it is all coming through a 3 Mbps DSL line, and then sharing that signal amongst all the users in the campground.

Straws and camels' backs, indeed. August is not the month when the migrational sap runs in my blood, but when I learned that my boom-da-boom-thud-boom neighbor might renew for another month, the decision became easy. I leave on 18 August. There's nothing wrong with how people live here, if that's what they like. But I have nothing in common with them. Any unpleasantness is my own fault for being in a place I shouldn't be. My 1995 Ford cargo van is all cleaned and waxed up -- beautiful. After three years of weathering in the New Mexican sun, the paint had turned dull and chalky, leaving the water bucket looking like a pail of milk. These cargo vans work so well as towing and storage machines that I wonder why more people don't use them: there are four bicycles and a BOB trailer in there -- and how could a human being live on less?! It has also swallowed up 33 gallons of water, a generator, a wall of supplies in shelves, and it's half empty! Granted, most bou

The only expense and chore remaining is to start up a wireless data plan with Verizon. I already have a MiFi gadget to use, thanks to the generosity of an RV friend. In Chapter 1 of my RV lifestyle the Verizon plan worked quite well. Trying to get by on free WiFi would have been false economy since it entails extra driving and temptation to buy expensive coffee and food at the "free" WiFi spot. Actually I made a game out of spotting cell towers and then camping in the forest or on BLM land where the topography gave me coverage. Nevertheless, getting wireless coverage did restrict my camping locations quite a bit. It is easy to resent that. It's natural to want Chapter 2 to be better or at least different from Chapter 1. Won't starting up a Verizon plan inevitably pull my camping lifestyle in the same direction as before? The satellite alternative doesn't appeal to me because of equipment cost, set up, and maintenance. And yet I have 18 hours per day to fi

It seemed odd that my resuscitation of the old van had not yet involved a drive out of town at highway speeds, so I used a tire purchase as my excuse to drive out of the Little Pueblo, down to the torrid high desert town of Deming, NM. It brought back some memories. For one thing, I remembered how much I would actually like driving the van and, yes, looking out the windshield, if the world would just let me drive at 45--55 mph. Call me heartless if you wish, but I don't really give a damn if the people who pass me end up in the ditch. But I don't want that to happen to an innocent motorist in the opposing lane, so I end up driving the speed limit instead of the leisurely pace I prefer. The other fact that came back with a vengeance was how different it is to drive south -- downhill and into the sun -- than north. My dog would heartily agree with that one. This was a reminder that an RV camper will find Dry Heat in the summer to be the source of 90% of his annual discomfort.

Financial turmoil is a serious business, so it's with comic relief that I read about Apple's market capitalization becoming bigger than Exxon's for the first time. 'Who has the biggest market capitalization' is a far cry from being the official 'most important' company; still, it does say something about the financial zeitgeist in a loose and unscientific sort of way.

Perhaps you are spending a lot of time these days reading financial websites. Today I have been drowning in informational trivia; maybe it's my fault for not choosing better websites. Why is it so hard for business writers, in the opening paragraph, to compare the relative sizes of Lehman (September 2008) and the current sickies, Bank of America and SocGen in France? That would let the reader quickly assess the risk and importance of the current mess with one already experienced. Sure, there are many facets to a comparison of SocGen and Lehman. But American news sources underestimate the importance of anything outside the USA; they are famously parochial. A simple numerical comparison might help their readers overcome some of this.

It is strange that Geitner, Obama, Wall Street liquidity junkies, and the usual cabal of narco-Keynesians would be so upset by Standard and Poor's downgrade of US government debt. Why don't they just nationalize Standard and Poor's, that is, literally make it a branch of the US government? Now, you might think I'm being facetious because that would result in the US government rating itself . To old-fashioned people, that might sound like a conflict of interest. They might even say it makes a farce out of ratings. But ratings are already a farce. Many people have gotten used to the idea that the budget deficit can be "funded" by the Federal Reserve buying US Treasury bonds. So why not take this sort of incestuous arrangement to the next logical step?

Yesterday was the day for the last big ticket items needed to get back on the road: I bought four new Interstate (GC-2) golf cart batteries; these are the conventional 6 volt, flooded, lead-acid batteries that lose water gradually and give off trace amounts of hydrogen when charging.

One of the difficulties of writing about financial markets these days is that it's hard to tell where politics ends and real markets begin. Many times it seems as though the stock market is just the tail of the Federal Reserve dog. Yesterday's market was down big enough to make mainstream news. Wall Street is desperately hoping that Bernanke's helicopter will come to the rescue, perhaps playing Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries , like in the movie, Apocalypse Now .  This scenario is playing out as I sketched in an earlier post . Obama must be nervous about Bernanke being too quick with QE3. There is a tremendous opportunity for him here if Bernanke doesn't blow it. If Obama wants to get reelected, the bloodletting in the job and stock markets needs a chance to look more desperate.

How many times have you bought something and experienced a real Wow! ?  In my case the first digital camera had that effect; so did the first GPS gadget. More times than not, I find new gadgets and appliances to be overblown; the ownership experience is disappointing or even embittering at times, and for good reasons. No gadget is better than its battery or its weakest connector or its cheapo plastic battery case lid. Typically the plastic display scratches up the first day. Yesterday I experienced a Wow from a homemade gadget: a trailer brake and light tester. Knowing how cheesy the connector is between the tow vehicle and the travel trailer, and how amateurish the wiring is near the trailer brakes, a driver can feel a vague dread in the back of his mind when he is driving down the road with many tons of stuff under his "command".

It is a pleasure to experiment with an affordable, high-efficiency, 12 volt DC, compressor-driven refrigerator. Results so far have been good. These units match up well with an RV camper who camps away from electrical hookups. (Do not confuse a compressor-driven refrigerator with those small, cheapo thermoelectric jobs.) The RV industry probably does the right thing in installing (Dometic or Norcold) ammonia/hydrogen-cycle refrigerators as standard equipment. They are versatile and satisfy a wide range of customers. Mine gave pretty good service for 9 years with only one expensive repair job. Its performance on propane was mediocre in the summer, though. But when one of these standard RV frigs is old and needs to be replaced ($1500 or more) or is begging for several hundred dollars of repairs, it's worth looking at alternatives, especially considering how expensive propane has gotten. (This blog is aimed at non-hookup campers of course.)

There are purists who aspire to going to heaven and sitting upon the right hand side of Thoreau and Gandhi; usually they proudly eschew generators on board their rigs. I think this is a mistake; more on that in a second. Generators would have a much better public image if small, quiet units were paired with the right chargers and batteries, and only used to power appliances that make sense.

How many articles do you remember from glossy travel magazines? Believe it or not, I remember one. The title was "Camp Dead End." It was a warning against holing up permanently in an RV park, instead of 'chasing adventure out there on the open road'. The article was in harmony with the RV industry's economic self-interest, of course. But the article was still eloquent.

Relatively late in my RV career I discovered the van camping sub-culture in the blogosphere. They are especially fun when written by a young idealist. What is it that makes them so pleasing to read? Is it because, like the opening of a famous Dickens novel, they are wondering aloud whether they will be the hero of their own lives? Or is it that they see their life as a noble experiment? 

It's too early in the monsoon season in the Southwest to see flowers. Most of them are cautious and wait until September. These two were a real surprise. Keep in mind that there was a severe drought for nine months prior to this. It's not good enough to just be pretty when you're in the flower biz. Something more dramatic and interesting is needed. First we must push away the Trivial and the Prittee-Poo, and dwell on the horribleness of the drought. We must be willing to stare into the Abyss . Some people won't do that because that would be "negative thinking." Too bad, because the real beauty isn't in the "positive", banal, and insipid color of flowers; it's in the violent contrast between Suffering and Rain. It reminded me of RVing in Mexico. Sometimes I would sit out in the plaza and admire the pretty senoritas; schoolgirls actually. It surprised me that they were so attractive. But why? Must a country have material affluence to have

One of the great things about living at high altitude is the cool evenings and mornings. But there is something almost unnerving about Dawn in midsummer, especially when the monsoons start and nocturnal clouds and humidity trap the terrestrial heat. It doesn't even seem real to walk outdoors at Dawn and not brace yourself against the chill: to relax the entire body and not feel threatened, and to be at peace with the world at this most peaceful time of day. As much as I dislike mid-day heat, it's worth suffering it just to experience these mild Dawns.

Chalk one up for audience participation. Recall that I wanted a convenient way to put air back in my tow vehicle's tires after letting half the air out, which is helpful in backcountry RV camping: no only does it make the ride more comfortable, but it keeps you from getting stuck. I was out of date on 12 VDC tire inflators. Reader Tom (of Orlando) suggested the Slime brand tire inflator. So I went to Walmart and bought the Slime "Heavy Duty" Tire Inflator (about $55, bar code # 16281 00618, no slime included.) When I opened the box I immediately began fluttering my eyelashes. It was love at first sight. You see, the problem with low power inflators is not so much the low power, but the cheesy valve connector that leaks the air out as fast as the inflator is trying to put it in.

It has always been a mystery to me how travelers inflate tires. Your chances of finding a functional and non-vandalized air pressure pump at a gas station are a bit better than finding a functional pay phone. But even so, it's hard to get near the air pump with your trailer. The alternative is to carry one of those cheesy 12 volt tire inflators; years ago they were slow and would burn up. Are they better today? Of course most people don't deliberately let half the air out of the rear tires of their tow vehicle, and then put it back in.

It's hard to discuss four wheel drive fairly. Since the 1980s it has been common and hackneyed to ridicule the owners of four wheel drive SUVs and pickup trucks as being turned on by the image of their machine, while in fact they have little, if any, use for four wheel drive. Indeed, if car loans weren't so easy to get, they would be forced to be more sensible. My own view is the American male is so emasculated by feminism, political correctness, and traditional wife-ish henpecking that a giant truck -- with big ol tars, 2 feet of ground clearance, and a throaty exhaust system -- is the only macho stupidity that society still permits him. But this discussion isn't about aspirational brontosaurus drivers in the suburbs; nor is it about jeeping as a "sport"; it's only about RV camping in the outback, and whether you need four wheel drive to do it.

Downsizing is both a challenge and a source of great satisfaction. However, one must be careful not to get sucked into Asceticism. The travel blogosphere is full of Holy Prophets of the Desert (grin), who think that when they die they are going to Heaven to sitteth upon the right hand side of Thoreau or Gandhi. For folks not in the market for pseudo-religious emotionalism disguised as philosophy, let's look at the Downsizing mantra from a rational viewpoint. The concept of Diminishing Returns is one of the most universal and true ideas in life. The first bit of Goodie X is wonderful; the next unit does you less good, and so forth, until you are getting less and less for each additional unit of time or money.

It is remarkable how few rattlers I see over the course of a year. The long term average is 0.4 rattlesnakes per year. And some of that is just confusion with similar-looking (non-venomous) bull snakes.

How could a full time traveler not get spoiled and fickle; how could he ever adjust to doing the same thing twice? Those were the doubts I had when getting off the road about three years ago. But I had a secret weapon: the Granny J Principle. That is, I would now look at "routine" things more carefully and closely, instead of relying on sheer visual novelty. A mind can be like a camera that takes a macro closeup of interesting details, instead of a pan-opticon of ever-changing landscapes.

Credit rating agencies are important, since large institutions (pension funds, insurance companies, etc.) are prohibited from investing in governments or corporations that have low credit ratings. Also, low credit ratings will result in higher interest rates to compensate for the risk; that is the essence of bond market discipline. During the financial bubble of the mid-Aughts, the dominant American credit rating agencies are "credited" with being the enablers of a thoroughly corrupt and reckless financial system. They gave "everybody" AAA ratings.

My goodness there are a lot of things to do to get back on the road again. Although few people think of motor vehicles with the ruthless utilitarianism that I do, here was a chance for an exception: a brand new windshield made the old van look so pretty!, especially when reflecting some puffy mid-day clouds brought by the monsoon season.  In truth I love vans.

Once a year I usually have a chance to visit an RV friend who amuses me by writing first drafts of blog posts with pen and paper. (The reader might have an elderly aunt who still sends handwritten letters because they are more "personal".) Recall that it used to be more common to say that pen and paper help you think, whereas the computer supposedly distracts the writer. It seems quaint to see him look at his notes on paper and then start expostulating on his still-unpolished ideas.

Live long enough and you'll have a chance to witness just about any food fad: one year a bombshell is dropped on a slow news day: fad-ogen correlates with cancer! The food conglomerates begin pumping out (higher priced) "new and improved" versions of the most boring foods, boasting about how low in fadogens they are. The mayor of a big city on the coast bans fadogen from school cafeterias and vending machines. Rumors fly that that the mayor might be appointed Secretary of Education or Surgeon General in the new Democratic administration. But soon fadogen becomes yesterday's news. Just then, a new blockbuster book comes out revealing that fadogen is actually healthy. Not only that, but fadogen is the only thing that one should eat. The author makes the circuit of TV talk shows, gives lectures for a six digit fee, and becomes quite the celebrity. Rumors fly that the author (a marketing major in college) might be in the running for the next Nobel prize in medicine.

One of these days somebody needs to construct a Top Ten list of ludicrous obsolescences: those anachronisms that somehow survive in the modern world, despite being way past their shelf life. Certainly Independence Day in America would make it near the top.

I really thought I was dreaming last night when I heard raindrops falling on the roof. And it persisted! Those who haven't experienced dry climates might not appreciate how brutal aridity can become, at times. But what should a person do to honor the occasion after a long drought is finally broken? Maybe the answer is in Frazer's The Golden Bough . It bothers me that I am living in a RV park surrounded by standard RV indoorsmen; the culture here encourages one to say, "So it rained last night, for the first time in six months. Big deal. What's on TV? Should we go out to eat?" On an unrelated topic, my 2004-era laptop is having trouble starting up Windows. It seems foolish to take it to a shop: all they will do is run an anti-virus program on it, and charge $100. Does anyone -- Apple groupies excepted -- have an 11.6" netbook (no optical drive, and low power consumption) in mind, that they would recommend?

It's a little hard to place this blog in the correct genre, since it's a hybrid -- or "bastard" if you prefer. RV, travel, camping, doggie outdoor lifestyle, walking/hiking and bicycling are all accurate phrases, but it doesn't fit cleanly into any of these pure categories. All in all, this pleases me. I can't imagine a better way to camp than with a smaller and less expensive RV, a dog, and a mountain bike. While readying my rig to start traveling again, it was profoundly satisfying to arrange the contents of my cargo van, yesterday. It was probably the same primal satisfaction that any animal gets when they rearrange their den or nest. So why didn't I ever experience that satisfaction when I owned a regular stick-and-brick house?

How can I do things better than before? That is the main question as I tool up for traveling again. Essentially, my answer is to push harder in the camping direction, as opposed to stereotypical RV travel or windshield tourism. Of course an RVer need not adopt a "camping" orientation at all, and most of them don't. But let's not talk about that. There are some bicycle touring blogs who interrupt their routine descriptions of ride statistics or camping details with perspectives about the real benefits of what they are doing: what satisfactions are they getting that couldn't be gotten by a more conventional lifestyle. They enjoy consciously dwelling on the things that a person with a conventional lifestyle takes for granted. And they like being inventive.

Most people have experienced problems "just solving themselves" when they took their minds off the issue for awhile. This is probably due to surrendering some unreasonable demand, or abandoning an invalid assumption in the way that they posed the problem.

I thought "one armed bandits" were slot machines. Yes, I've rejoined that elite group of people known as "motorists." My goodness there is a lot to do to restore to life an older van that has been quiescent for almost three years, outside, and exposed to the "Four Gentle Seasons" of this area. It couldn't be put off for long: I had to drive up to a gasoline pump and rejoin American culture. For a few seconds I just stared at the pump and thought "Do I really want to do this?" Finally, resigned to shame and defeat, I had to ask, "Let's see here, what do I do first? How does this work again?"

Who was it that said that a cynic is nothing but an idealist who has been disappointed once too often? Perhaps it's time to admit that I was a romanticist and idealist in wanting to live permanently in an old mining town, and live car-free. I certainly made it work for about three years, and must make some effort to see it as a partial success from the big picture perspective.

More times than not, I like challenging weather, and look down on the softies who complain about weather. It's funny how objective-discomfort can be experienced as either a stimulating challenge or as debilitating drudgery. The local visitor's center uses the 'Four Gentle Seasons' slogan to sell the Little Pueblo to visitors and retirees. It's partly true, but not this year. We are half way through 2011 and haven't even experienced one gentle season yet: below zero weather in the winter, wildfires and high winds all spring, and now we're pushing triple digits. Growl. Maybe I'm just dumping on the Little Pueblo because I'm trying to psyche-up about leaving it.

I was enjoying my car-free lifestyle in an RV park in the Little Pueblo. It was a nice and roomy park with 50% overnighters and 50% monthlies. The monthlies used to be older RVers who had gotten off the road for one reason or another, or maybe a younger person who had a job in town. But lately we've been taken over by miners and construction crews. It's a noisy and rough crowd. I no longer like living here. And yesterday I had an encounter with one of the rowdies that made me think it's just plain dangerous to be here. A camper can't do anything about a degenerating camping experience. The campground is a business; he can only love it or leave it. That's why God put wheels under his house. An RVer certainly pays a price for becoming immobile: he can't just skedaddle anymore. It takes time and money to escape now. No wonder I used to be on the road most of the time! Even when you find a town that you could live in, there is no guarantee that the RV parks are

Either political party is playing a whole new game when its opponent actually learns from its mistakes and reforms itself.

Conspiracy theories have never interested me and I look down on those who are into them. So it's with some reluctance that I admit that there seems to be something fishy with the recent killing of Osama bin Laden and the recently announced (painfully gradual) draw-down of troops from Afghanistan.

It is going to get a lot harder to bicycle up to the Continental Divide from now on. For the last month I was so inflamed with fear about being chosen for that jury that anger alone seemed to get me up the hill: as I ranted away internally, the miles and altitude slipped by almost without notice.

Hooray! I escaped the clutches of the American Police State; I got out of jury duty.

After the threats and warnings that prospective jurors get about talking about the questions on the questionnaire, the next step is to drag the prisoners -- I mean 'citizens', patriots, lucky Americans -- halfway across the state, so that lawyers and judges can subject them to enhanced interrogation techniques. Try this one on: We welcome you as a Juror in the United States District Court for the District of [X]. The United States jury system is among the best in the world. Its success is due largely in part to willing participation of citizens such as yourself. "...due largely in part to..." Let's hope that the federal government presses a new prose stylist into their service.

Do you remember when Ronald Reagan said, "I wasn't born on the other side of the tracks, but I was close enough to hear the whistle?" In my mid 50s now, I feel the same way about geezerhood. The scariest thing should be impoverishment, increasing solitude, the loss of mental faculties, disease, pain, and finally death. But it isn't. The scariest thing is slowly turning into one of those old men who talks endlessly about themselves, usually about some dumb job they had way back when.

You'd think that a blogger who puts 'independence' in his title would at least be good at it. I have a concrete example of how perversely difficult it is to be truly independent about buying and using an item that you use everyday.

Admit it. As sick as it sounds, you feel a certain admiration for the Greeks: living for today, with no concern for tomorrow; throwing a big party with borrowed money; lying to the European Union (oh boo-hoo); and being guilt-free about it all. Ahh dear, that is the difference between a Mediterranean and an up-tight Northern European. Strictly speaking, the creditor who lends money to an unfit debtor deserves more condemnation than the debtor, who just wants to have a good time. And the creditors are big banks in up-tight Germany. What's the worst that can happen? If Greece defaults, it will still survive -- ask Argentina. For a few years the big banks of Germany won't lend them any new party-money. But they will, eventually. Then the festival can start all over again.

I said "net", not internet. As an experiment I've decided to stop moderating comments; thus, comments show up on the screen immediately after typing them. After all, if a potential commenter thinks the blogger doesn't trust him, it's natural for the potential commenter to just back away, without wasting his time. I never really moderated anyway, except for an occasional spam comment. I only insist on comments not being personal or on names being used. Blatantly commercial comments will be deleted.

So the truck (of last episode) belonged to a non-profit corporation, did it? Why was that important enough to stick on the outside of the truck? Environmentalism -- that is, Karl Marx meets Bambi -- is an easy belief system to make fun of, but I'm in statesman mode today. Let's just take their belief system as it is, and try to make it compatible with high quality forests, instead of the overgrown tinder boxes and spruce bark beetle feeding-grounds that most of the national forests are. Besides that, national forests are just plain ugly. Do environmentalists really like these eye sores any more than the rest of us?

The Wallow Fire is still burning over 400,000 acres in northeastern Arizona, making it the second biggest wildfire in that state's history. I was reading some of the comments on this fire, particularly those that criticize bad forest management policies. They can get quite emotional! Unfortunately they break into two hostile camps that scream all the same ol' shibboleths at each other: tree-huggers versus rednecks, etc. There must be a better way. This is what I'm aiming at in this post.

We don't get many cholla or cactus flowers in the spring, here in the Little Pueblo, so I do appreciate them. But it was the needles that grabbed me.

Despite my sermons against the reading of books I am guilty of just that, from time to time. Normally I reread a classic rather than look for a new book, since the latter has only one chance in a thousand of being worth reading. For instance the other day I was rereading a semi-classic by Bronowski and Mazlish, The Western Intellectual Tradition . The book is OK, but these cut-and-paste historical surveys seldom show much original thinking. They give a professor a chance to appear as an elder statesman, and to broaden his appeal outside a sub-divisional sliver of research. While reading about Hobbes, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and other celebrities of history, I got bored and went to the al-Jazeera website.