Skip to main content

Posts

The Lion Hunters

We were taking a hike on the Continental Divide this morning when a couple super-athletes came by. Both dogs made Tour de France cyclists look like pudgy marshmallows. They had enormously long legs, exposed ribs, and tortilla-sized floppie ears. They had no interest in being petted or drinking water. They were not unfriendly to me or my kelpie, Coffee Girl.   All legs and lungs -- and ribs! But there was an indifference that I'm not used to seeing in a dog. I don't like it. A dog should be your friend and come back to you when called. The "generalist" makes a better pet than an obsessive-compulsive specialist, like these two workaholic hounds. Still, you have to admire a critter that is good at what it does, and does exactly what it was "meant" to do. That certainly describes these two. They were serious professionals on the job, hunting for something. Their earnestness was accentuated by the GPS collars and foot-long antennas, which gave them a b

A Twinkies Bailout Coming?

You can easily imagine president Obama taking a few days off, maybe even a vacation, after a hard-fought reelection campaign. That's not to say that the next four years don't look frightening enough; in fact, "winning" the White House in 2012 might ironically turn out to be a curse for his party, or for the other one if it had won. But still, shouldn't he be able to act like a human being and soak it up for awhile? Alas, political life can be cruel. His post-election Era of Good Feeling is already cut short by the crisis at hand. I'm not referring to the General Petraeus scandal or the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Those are just sideshows. I'm referring to the liquidation of Hostess Brands, the makers of Ho Ho's, Ding Dongs, and Twinkies. Although it's good to see that a crisis of this gravity is being given proper attention by the business media, nobody is yet discussing the necessity of a bailout. (Perhaps in a day or two, we'll see pro-bai

Moving Beyond Postcards

A n experienced traveler has to move onward and upward when it comes to his appreciation of the outdoors. The postcard-worship of the newbie/vacationer is no longer of much use to him. Many people are uncomfortable with statements like this because they think they are negative. Was it "negative" when you graduated kindergarten and were promoted to first grade? A year ago I experienced an unusually powerful example of "aesthetic evolution" near Socorro, NM. Explaining it seemed like a big project. And we all know what people do when they are dreaming things up into a big project. They procrastinate. Since I ret urned to this area recently let's see if it I can knock it down to size, this time around.  I went into a certain area along a dirt road. My expectations were very low. In fact I remember henpecking myself about the choice of road and the waste of gasoline. It was a complete surprise to encounter some sexy and naked "structural geology."

Pop Quiz on 'How to Read a Book'

Occasionally it is fun to see if I can catch the readers sleeping by giving them a pop quiz. A couple comments about eReader gadgets recently revealed an opportunity for me to move in for the kill (grin). There seems to be a misunderstanding of what it takes to read a book comfortably .  This is an important topic for those of us who see internet addiction (on trivial and repetitive websites) as a serious problem to overcome. Has anyone ever beaten a vicious habit by trying to replace it with a vacuity? I doubt it. They need to replace it with something that has a positive existence; something that is tangible, lively, and takes up time. In my case that means giving up the insulting trivialities of the blogosphere and going back to reading "books." Now for the multiple choice quiz: which factor has the greatest beneficial effect on your comfort, endurance, and attention span when reading a book? Display size of the eReader, i.e, 7", 10", etc. Operating system

A Setback Along the Trail to Internet Addiction Recovery

The other day Coffee Girl and I were mountain biking on some fine land near Grants NM at the border of BLM and na tional forest . Even if huffing and puffing di dn't inform you that you were climbing, altitude leaves a track by transitioning from  high grasslands (with deser t charac teristics) to juniper shrubs to pinyon trees to ponder osa s. One area was spider webbed with old two- tracks that went into a firewood-cutting area. Naturally all of this exploring was free of silly encumbrances such as maps and gadgets. T rial and error. After many dead ends it was time to ask why I wasn't better at finding my own tracks: mountain bike tire tracks are easy to see. Why was reading tracks so interesting and important? It sounds like a boring topic. But I experienced such a strange near-obsession over it.   As alw ays, it is fun to stand somewhat apart from yourself and wonder what the heck was going on, and then explain it.  Having free time lets the mind become interested i

The Right Set of Balls (Updated)

Who was it that coined the phrase, "Nothin' beats a great pair of legs?" Cyd Charisse, Ann Miller, Juliet Prowse? Whoever it was, what counts is that the expression, whatever its veracity, is not of universal utility and applicability. For instance there are times when nothin' beats having the right set of balls. While doing some backroad exploring near Socorro, NM, I took the wrong road. (There was no sign.) The road surface was hard and smooth, b ut very steep, well past negative double digits in percent slope. When the road deadended at a ranch I realized my error, got turned around, and started to go back up the hill. Whoa now, st op, breathe, think.  It was time to let half the air out of the tires. We all probably forget to do this as often as we should. Even when extra traction/flotation isn't needed, lower ti re pressure makes washboarded BLM roads less brutal. The trick is to buy a good tire inflator so it doesn't take forever to put the air pr

Sniggering at a Cervine

It's rare to get a chance to smile at animals, aside from our domestic pets. The best shots at this occur when a normally boring or stupid animal suddenly becomes clever. For instance, ungulates don't seem like the brightest bulbs on Mother Earth, but under the right circumstances... Going down a road in the Socorro NM area I was surprised at the number of "hunters" parked along the road. Which season is it now ? But then again, maybe they were joy-riding four-wheelers, rather than hunters. The "lower" Rio Grande starts at Socorro by my estimate. It is reminiscent of the Mojave Desert, even though it is the Chihuahuan Desert, officially. Although I postpone "winter" locations in order to keep North America from shrinking too soon, it was fun to start walking arroyos again, which is something I only do in the winter. What really makes walking these arroyos delicious is the cold, dry air. On today's walk there were some cows. That'

Why Blue Votes Blue and Red, Red

Near El Rito, NM. It was finally time to come down from the high ridges and head to town to get the usual supplies. Hunters said that the only store in town was a restaurant that was humble, but offered tasty food. Victims of Bernanke's Zero Interest Policy like me have no business "eating out" but sometimes it is irresistible in small towns. It seems like you are really "making a difference" in a place that has the weakest commercial pulse imaginable. As it turned out, the restaurant was closed anyway. Typical. I drove through the town looking for a small grocery store, but found nothing. Ahh but there was something else. There were huge school buildings and athletic fields; police headquarters with high tech and expensive squad cars parked outside; and a Forest Service office. It was a large, modern, air-conditioned, office building, decked out in nice office furniture and the latest computers. Outside was an astounding number of motor vehicles; not just h

A Two-Netbook "Minimalist"

Go ahead and laugh. I responded to the news about the $500 Windows RT tablet by going to Walmart to buy a second Acer Aspire One (model 722-0473) netbook. This is the first time in my life when I've o wned two computers. I panicked into concluding that, over the ne xt cou ple years, the computer industry will kill off the netbook and leave the chumps only the following sorry options : 1) $800-1000 WINTEL "ultrabooks" or , 2) $500-600 tablets based on ARM micro processors , similar to those in sm artphones, that only offer a "half-internet" experience or , 3) inexpensive 7" tablets that are basically just smartphones with out the ability to make phone calls. Or call them vending machines for media consumable s from Amazon or the iShackle s tore (Apple's iTunes) . Last but not least, 4) the usual overpriced "walled garden" at the Apple store, built around its notorious iShackle media store, and incompatible connect ors and opera

The Internet Versus the Noble Savage

Baby Boomers should have something to say about consuming information as a way of life. When we came into this world, the great blight of television befell the world. Today, toward the end of our passage, the internet is taking over. These are two information revolutions just as big as, but far more sudden than, the invention of the alphabet or Gutenberg's movable-type printing press. Baby Boomers, destined to eventually become America's Worst Generation, started off life as the first generation raised on television. TV-haters (like me) would love to believe that that proves cause and effect. Whether you buy that or not, it is strange how uncritically many parents welcomed TV into their homes in the 1950s. Soon the living room furniture was all arranged around the TV set. Many children grew up with no restrictions on their TV habits. How ironic that many a traditional father in the 1950s kept a gun in the house to 'protect his family', you know. And yet he allowed th

The Noble Savage Back in the City

Real travelers -- as opposed to mere sightseers -- might yearn for opportunities to learn of new manners and customs, languages and religions, and ways of life. But it's tough to do that without traveling to third world countries, with all the costs and risks. Even there you would need opportunities to live and work with the locals, rather than just gawk at them as quaint caricatures.  Perhaps one of the biggest advantage of dispersed camping on public lands is that it makes you so separate from the normal American that you get to experience what could be seen as exotic foreign travel when you return to the most ordinary metropolitan areas in your own country.  When the ol' desert rat or dispersed camper -- think of him as a Noble Savage -- returns to the city, what exactly happens to him as he becomes "normal" again? Adjusting to the obscene onslaught of noise, 7 and 24 and 365, is the most immediate and obvious change. Do most people see this Noble Savage as

A Train Whistle in the Middle of the Night

It has been some time since I was camped at the right distance (say, 4 miles) from a train. A busy track lies beside Interstate 40. The overall route has been popular over the decades for many forms of transportation, and for good reason. It reaches the Pacific without crossing any mountain passes.   A ppreciating the quiet rumbl e of the train and its whistle is more intense if you frankly acknowledge how obnoxious they are up close. W hen you hear that soothing sound from 4 miles off , you have to wonder how it could be the same machine. In a stationary hou se you would be quite lucky to be at just the right distance for the train to have the optimum effect . In an RV park you would probably be squeezed between the interstate highway and the t rain track.  But a dispersed camper ca n easily move a mile closer or further aw ay. W ith that idea in mind Coffee Girl and I mountain biked downhill a ways yesterday until we could see over the last ridge. There it was, still a couple

Escaping the Reservation

Or... Navigation on the Navajo Reservation There is no denying that there has been much "progress" the last few years in GPS gadgets for the dashboard of motor vehicles. Just the same, I'm glad I've abstained, since it might have robbed me of a unique and memorable experience the other day. I was taking a "shortcut" paved road, supposedly, from Cuba to Grants, NM. The trip began on a secondary dirt road on BLM land. The washboard was so bad that the sewer hose jiggled loose and fell off on the road. When I drove back to look for it, the old superstition about 'retreating being bad luck' came to mind. As I headed west into the Navajo reservation I kept wondering why it was a dirt road road. The DeLorme and Benchmark atlases had never disappointed me before, except for a minor error here and there. Making a wrong turn isn't normally a big deal. In fact in the past I've accepted the outcome of wrong turns and just kept going, just to see w

Two Flawed Candidates

The outcome of the first presidential debate has been historically important. (Remember, I don't watch the debates themselves.) Spinmeisters are probably correct when they say this is the first time President Obama has gone in front of so many potential voters without the protective force field set up by his adoring fans in the news media. I'm not for either candidate. The great Quotemeister of the Internet, Edward Frey , found a quote (see his 12 October 2012 post) from Business Insider pointing out that Ben Bernanke has not been mentioned yet in either debate. How careless of them! Yea right. The only solid reason for voting for Romney is that he has said he won't reappoint that narco-Keynesian clown. But what Romney has completely failed to do is come out with both guns blazing about breaking up the Too-Big-To-Fail banks. From George Will today we have: It is inexplicable politics and regrettable policy that Romney has, so far, flinched from a forthright endorsem

New Travel Link Added

So far I've resisted adding links to dozens of "me too" mainstream RV travelogues because, when I'm the reader, a mile-long list of such links is too daunting to even dig in to. So I've restricted the list to friends' blogs. In other cases I haven't listed links to certain blogs because they already have huge readerships, so my referrals wouldn't give them the slightest bump. (Examples are toSimplify.net and theBayfieldBunch.com) But even more fundamentally I don't list mainstream RV travelogues because they are stereotypical to the point of self-parody. They are too much alike and too predictable. Does it sound like I'm in curmudgeon mode today? I admit to being fairly hard to please. But there is a constructive way to use reputed "cynics" and "negative thinkers": when they give a recommendation it really means something . I added cheapRVliving.com to my list of links. It's been built by somebody who I have never