At the very end of that first day we stuffed ourselves with Hanksville bacon cheeseburgers and got a little drunk, but it still wasn’t enough to finally bring sleep and thus we danced our way into the wee hours.

***

This episode is sponsored by the quotes of Edward Abbey.

The purpose of love, sex, and marriage is the production and raising of children. But look about you: Most people have no business having children. They are unqualified, either genetically or culturally or both, to reproduce such sorry specimens as themselves. Of all our privileges, the license to breed is the one most grossly abused.

Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.

Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.

Our job is to record, each in his own way, this world of light and shadow and time that will never come again exactly as it is today.

***

In terms of the actual mission, the one thing that got done was the first couple of miles of the Burr Trail, which is a mostly paved road.

After those couple of miles, there was a quarter mile of mud and water where the road should have been.

I walked around the pond.

And I considered driving through it, or around it, but having just paid the nosebleed tax, I was of a more cautious sort of mind on this Tuesday, and I demurred.

Then from the other direction we watched a jeep crash right through it without apparent incident.

Suddenly I wanted a jeep instead of a Subaru, but …

After a few hours of consultation and reflection, I realized: I already have a jeep, except it’s a 4WD pickup, and I already have a sleeping shell for it, and that the real problem wasn’t lacking yet another vehicle, but that 10 miles to the gallon at five dollars to the gallon is painful on an anarchist budget either way.

Some taxes must be paid but buying things is hardly ever the answer.

Humans were free before the word freedom became necessary.

Just as, before 1600 or so, there was no such thing as Nature Writing, because there was no such idea as Nature, because pretty much everything was nature.

So too, when freedom was ubiquitous, before domestication and slavery became the norm, there wasn’t any need to prattle on about it, or discuss the fact of it at all.

***

Charity should be spontaneous. Calculated altruism is an affront.

When the situation is hopeless, there’s nothing to worry about.

Saving the world is only a hobby. Most of the time I do nothing.