Occupation of Independence

Once, a friend in a bicycle club told me a little about his job driving a mini-bus for the city -- one of those buses that responds to individual calls to pick up people with special needs. His supervisors were quite systematic in the training they gave him to visualize big clockwise loops, with no left hand turns, and with no back-and-forth wastefulness. An RVer would benefit from training like that, especially now that the era of cheap oil is over, and the cost of maintaining motor vehicles escalates at double digit rates. I have found this easy to do on a "strategic" level. Even as a newbie RVer I had no interest in the mainstream RV cliche of 'visiting every state and Canadian province' on some sort of bucket list, and then buying one of those silly maps that you put on the door, and coloring in each mighty conquest as it happens. The freshman year was the last year for RVing east of the Rockies, for all the obvious reasons. It was also the last year for

This morning I had the pleasure of reading the best financial post in a long time, on "Of Two Minds." Why doesn't the destruction of middle class wealth by the ratholes of health care, higher education, and housing get more attention than tanned female Olympic athletes frolicking in cheeky leotards or exultant NASA nerds imitating Olympic victory celebrations for their latest successful Giga-boondoggle?

Uncompahgre Plateau, west of Montrose, CO. I am pleased to stumble upon my second "forest miracle" in one summer. Up here at 9000 feet the locals are busy as beavers harvesting firewood in various areas where it is allowed. It's nice to see them actually get some use out of their oversized, overpowered, and overpriced pickup trucks, the official car of Colorado. Maybe one of them will tell me how much a full load of firewood is worth, compared to buying heat from the power company. Of course, I just love seeing downed timber get cleared away. It makes the forest a lot more attractive and removes "ladder fuel" from a potential forest fire. And Coffee Girl can chase squirrels up tree with fewer speed bumps on the forest floor. (Then again, she has amazing buoyancy in bounding over logs.) Progress is being made in this forest, and I don't want to sound greedy, but do you think that commercial companies can get permits to cut firewood and then sell it

With the exception of a doctor repairing our body, is there anything that relieves us of worry like getting our motor vehicle repaired? I thought about this after a long-distance tow to town, recently. Both the van and the trailer were towed, so I could sleep overnight in the repair shop's parking lot. Being stranded at an inopportune place could cause a lot of worry for an RVer. I envied the owner of the repair shop. He did a job that was tangible and crucial to his customers. Contrast that with some insignificant college boy in a cubicle at a large organization, wasting his life by writing reports that no one will read, attending useless meetings, following arbitrary organizational rules, laughing at the boss's jokes whether they are funny or not, and hoping to dodge layoffs in middle age. Of course there are a number of reasons why my mechanic might think that running a car-repair business is a hard way to make a living. Do you think he subscribes to the one-time Americ

I read on Mish Shedlock that the birthrate has fallen to a 25-year-low, in part because young adults are having such a hard time finding jobs. Mish believes that America is in for a decade or two of structurally high unemployment. I certainly don't envy young people starting off in life today, since greedy and irresponsible Baby Boomers -- America's Worst Generation -- have stacked the odds against them. But what advice would you give to a frustrated and discouraged 25-year-old today about making a living?  We must guard against the tendency of oldsters to get suckered into 'grass is greener on the other side of the mountain.' Otherwise we will tend to romanticize a dream job as an antidote to decades of frustration and disappointment suffered in a real job. It is easier to say what you wouldn't start off in, if you were 25 today. Manufacturing is ancient history in our post-industrial society, of course. And yet I'll bet colleges still teach useless subje

It would have been easy to drop my hiking pole over the cliff (like Gayle the other day) when I saw this bird on a trail that would soon present a marvelous vista of Ouray CO.  After fighting the urge to immediately run to Bobbie (in the Ouray RVing and Hiking Team) for help, I actually managed to identify it as a western tanager . It would only pose for one shot before it flew off. (From my 'birds' album in Picasa:) This made the hike for me, as did coffee and banana/pumpkin bread back in town.

Normally a dog is quite an asset on a hike or mountain bike ride; the human feeds off the dog's energy; it brings out our Inner Wild Child; it's as if the dog becomes an extension of our own nerve endings. But yesterday my dog turned out to be a nuisance. Although I don't have an inordinate fear of heights and cliffs, I freak out when my kelpie, Coffee Girl, gets too near the edge of vertiginous trails. So I abandoned the Ouray RVing and Hiking Team and descended Bear Creak trail. Most of the way back down I heard crashing through the forest and saw a large brown body through the leaves and needles. I snapped Coffee Girl back on her leash so she wouldn't chase the deer-like animal on still dangerous slopes. A half minute later this creature popped out on the trail: My initial reaction was that this was the ugliest deer fawn that I've ever seen. It was pretty small; maybe hip high or so. It stood above us on the trail and looked right at us. It would

I hate to admit it but it would be nice to carry a smartphone with a flower, tree, or bird "app" when hiking in the mountains. As an alternative, hike with Bobbie . (Besides, she doesn't require batteries. She is a battery on the trail.) Seriously I'd rather just ask somebody a question than play with some distracting gadget. For instance, the shape of this flower was reminiscent of Indian paintbrush, but the color was wrong. She explained that Indian paintbrush does come in more than one color. Mark and Bobbie complained about my wisecracks (on my blog) against eye candy, postcards, pretty-poo scenery worship, etc. It surprised me that I'd given offense. Perhaps they underestimate the difference between a part-time RVer (in vacation/tourist mode) and a full-time RVer who must expand his interests in other directions. At any rate I was making a certain amount of progress mending my fences on the way up Courthouse Mountain, just past Chimney Rock wher

It was time to get reacquainted with Ouray CO and Mark and Bobbie at Box Canyon Blog. I left the 9000-foot-high lava plateau (Springerville, AZ) this morning when it was still dawnlike and dew-soaked. It just didn't seem right to have been sleeping at night with a skull cap on -- in the middle of summer! I just left it on when I took off driving.  What a surprise it was to see clear sunny on the way to Ouray. I'd forgotten how dessicated the Four Corners is. The lowest and hottest spot on a trip in the West is the river crossing, the San Juan River in this case. I crossed at the town of Shiprock, named after the famous volcanic throat, nearby: To my eye, Shiprock is better looking than the over-photographed Monument Valley. From my " geology,rocks " Picasa album. The San Juan River doesn't even earn a 5 handle there (a mere 4900 feet).  I got out for lunch break and was reminded of what Dry Heat can be. How quickly a camper can get out of shap

As much as I like having solar panels on my RV it has always seemed strange that they should be so over-praised by many RV bloggers. I always thought it was just the emotional gratification of feeling Green, and look forward to going to heaven and sitting on the right-hand side of Thoreau or Gandhi. The other reason for over-promoting solar panels is ad income of course. Now that the monsoons are hitting the Southwest, you need a generator to boondock camp. Oh sure, it's easy to say that you "just" need to try harder to conserve electricity; but rainy and muddy days are the very times when you spend most of the day indoors and need the most electricity.   While considering the camping location of a nearby camper who was out in the open, I suddenly had a "new" thought about solar panels -- new to me, that is. He had a large and prominent satellite TV dish on his small rig. Ahh, no wonder he needs to stay out in the open -- his boob toob wouldn't w

Uhh! Uhh. It's been so long since the wind was knocked out of me that I forgot how scary it was. The first couple seconds were precious because I felt no sharp pain -- and didn't that prove that no bones were broken?   After about ten "uhhs" I started breathing normally and pushed myself off the dirt trail. I was going down a single track trail built for "downhill" mountain bikers.  Naturally I was only willing to test a baby jump or two. After jumping one small log on the steep slope I must have taken my hand off the brakes momentarily because the bike shot forward and downward like a rocket; I flew over the handle bars, mercifully landing on a rock-free ramp up to the next -- and larger -- "ski jump." Ski jump for bikes in the background -- ouch! Long-suffering readers know that the foolishness of technical mountain biking and trails is one of my standard stump speeches, so we'll skip that. Suffice it to say that I walked down t

'Be careful of what you wish for' is an old saying that deserves respect. In years past I suffered and obsessed over Dry Heat in June. In the Southwest it is the hottest and most oppressive month. But then I did something stupid: I got good at avoiding the Dry Heat! I've been cool all May and June, while everybody else has been whining about the heat. You can credit Luna NM and Springerville AZ for this tragic turn of events. Alas, the lack of June Agony makes it hard to experience the usual Ecstasy when the monsoons finally arrive near the first of July. How great it would be to flop on the ground during a monsoonal thundershower and scream, "We're saved!" It would be reminiscent of something Bertrand Russell once described: Whatever we may wish to think, we are creatures of Earth; our life is part of the life of the Earth, and we draw our nourishment from it just as the plants and animals do.  I have seen a boy of two years old, who had bee

Is "obscene" too harsh of a word? It could be. For many years I called Christmas the most obscene national holiday. But that was a mistake. The commercialism (and endless, stupid music) of Christmas might be objectionable on the basis of taste, but it doesn't really offend important values held by serious and sincere people. After all, Christmas really isn't a Christian holiday; it never was. It's simply about fun. But the hypocrisies of the modern Fourth of July do offend the values that most Americans used to take seriously. What could be more disgusting than pretending to care about "freedom" one day a year when, in fact, freedom means little to the average Amerikan today. Too bad I haven't paid more attention to politicians' speeches; it would be great to have statistical proof of a mere suspicion of mine that Democratic politicians don't even bother bloviating about freedom -- nobody would believe them if they did. The whole no

Springerville AZ, the White Mountains. James Howard Kunstler must be furious. American gasoholics (virtually all of us) feel that 'happy days are here again,' now that regular gasoline has plummeted to $3.50 per gallon. Let's hope they are still making money on snacks, cigs, or the 40 ounce buckets of fructose fizz they are known for. Gee maybe it's time to bring back the Hummer? Has Kunstler ever written an essay about the RV industry? It would be amusing to read it, if you could handle his goose quill, dipped in venom. For my part I think that RVers have their work cut out for them if they want their lifestyle to continue long into the future in a way that is recognizable. Sure, they could camp in one place forever and drive around town in a tiny "towed", but too much of that would represent a completely different lifestyle.  Despite the recent -- and no doubt temporary -- relief at the fuel pump I continue to press against promiscuous driving, that

And so my career in the RV Quest for Community Caravan is over. I left for another campsite in the same area this morning. It was a noble experiment and, I think, a successful one. By "success" I mean that it involved non-trivial interaction between members, resulting in certain changes in their behavior or daily lifestyle. Two raptors chase a raven around a thermal uplift. Whatever else, we avoided the standard malaise of intentional/planned Utopias: repression and stasis. Recall your Toynbee (*): For these works [planned Utopias] are always programmes of action masquerading in the disguise of imaginary descriptive sociology. Hence in almost all Utopias...an invincibly stable equilibrium is the aim to which all other social ends are subordinated and, if need be, sacrificed. The experience also required me to scrutinize my behavior around other campers, and then try to file off some of my sharp edges. Or one could look at it as a good little Hegel

It has been a long time since I've come out of a store with a big smile on my face. The Western Drug and General store in Springerville AZ was really too big to call a general store. It was really a home-grown department store of a type you probably thought extinct. Now I know what you're thinkin': that I'm about to use the cliche, eclectic, to describe it. But 'eclectic' usually implies gifts, souvenirs, or cyootsie-wootsie junk that appeals to women. Instead, the store had an excellent selection of practical goods. The store reflected the local character of Springerville, the capital of Arizona's White Mountains, by having an excellent collection of camping supplies, hunting and fishing equipment, etc. I've had a running argument (a joke actually) with a fellow camper about how easy it is to buy 3/4" wide Arno straps and Benchmark or DeLorme atlases. She contends that these items are so exotic that they can't be gotten in a small western

I make no secret of having little faith in building a loose RV camping caravan/community on the basis of idealism, platitudes, hippie-dippie cultural values, or group therapy while sitting in chairs. Talk is cheap. For me what matters is common activities in the outdoors -- activities that really matter to people -- and then acknowledging that these outdoor interests are more fun when sharing them with other people. It is a great challenge to do this within an RV milieu because of mainstream RV culture's fanatical negativity towards using the human body for anything other than operating a motor vehicle or waddling down to the next potluck. And most of them are too old, too fat, completely out-of-shape, and have health problems.  I have an ex-RVer friend who now lives in Tucson, which has a huge hiking club. He has had many hours of enjoyment with them. He had little opportunity for the same success with RVers, and that's one reason why he abandoned RVing. Apparently h

Maybe he was right after all; the commenter that is. Recently a commenter chided me on my inconsistency in denigrating single-track riding when mountain biking, since I usually praise the Agony-and-Ecstasy dualities of heat/cold, downhill/uphill, Dry Heat/monsoons, city/outback, etc.  I just got back from a "nice" ride today. You know what? I feel disappointed compared to the ride a couple days ago, when several things went wrong. "Nice" sort of means "boring." I was following an ATV trail. Who says that motorized and non-motorized sports can't be compatible? The trail was smooth and troughed. It was delightful to mountain bike on, and it was a perfect running track for my kelpie, Coffee Girl. Then it started dying step-by-step. First it devolved from a two track to a single track; then it became a gnarly hiking trail; finally it turned into a game trail with fallen logs every few feet. My gosh, does it ever get tiresome to lift a heavy

Arizona's White Mountains, Springerville. Actually it seems less like mountains around here than high lava-based plateaus with occasional volcanic knolls. Some of these were connected by a grassy ridgeline, and you know how I get with ridgelines and saddles. But first... Since there are new readers on this blog lately, some explanation should be offered to them as to why I don't show them scenic postcard after postcard of all the photo cliches of the West: Monument Valley, red arches in Utah, snow-capped peaks in the Rockies, etc.  The short answer is that I see full time RVing as a profession or occupation, not as a short term vacation. If you are looking for scenery-based escapism, you have arrived at the wrong blog. Let's make the case for appreciating these high grassy plateaus, knolls, and ridgelines by looking back to something I wrote earlier when visiting the San Luis Valley in Colorado. Then, after the second horizontal line, I'll return