We've sold our souls, Garrison. We won't be able to buy them back either.

I don't have a car and live in a city where you can either walk or take the bus or train, and I plan very soon on buying a bike. Anyway, I like it. It cuts down on all the junk you buy too. You only get what you can put in your own personal grocery cart or Ikea bag. Lived in the country for a while where I was queen of the road in my Toyota Matrix, but it was cold and lonely. We used to go the park but no one else ever went there because they had huge yards of their own with invisible fences for their dogs. You could walk to the store there, but it was not pedestrial friendly and it was about 5 miles to the nearest store unless you lived in the village (which I did not), then walking was fine. I like big yards, I like small towns, but I like a community too, and walking really makes you feel like part of one. I probably will rent a car this summer though and take my kids camping for a long weekend though, that sounds like fun. Oh yeah, the stores where I do my grocery shopping are stand-alone stores on streets with coffee shops, drugstores, hamburger joints, a fat-lady store, antique shops, pizza places, library. It's pretty cool. Sometimes I feel like I'm back east in the '50s.

pedestriaN friendly, not pedestriaL, and actually the small towns in the NE were doing very well up until the '70s, when Reagan became president. If you don't believe me, ask Bruce Springsteen.

In my state, they have at least one state park with yurts and a few state parks with cabins...and one with RV's you can rent. The RV's are permanently stationed there. It's kind of a program to introduce campers to the RV lifestyle. Why can't they park the RV's permanently at campsites and people make their way to the campsites and rent the RV's same as they rent the cabins and the Yurts?

I love camping...in ANYTHING...don't want to waste gas just want to camp.

Last week I played part time host to a 65 member twin-cities family having their Family Reunion in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. Excitedly I told them they all lived in and around the town of one of my favorite writers, Garrison Keillor. Some beamed proudly while others of a stodgier age, sotto voce, told me that some of his writing was pretty racey. I happen to like the racey stuff along with the slow but I decided not to pick any fights.

While gas races toward $5 per gallon in the States and Diesel fuel is already there, and quickly moving towards $6 per gallon, and the Oil companies and their share holders rake in the do-re-me, gas here in Mexico is at a reasonable $2.80 a gallon, diesel at $2.40 a gallon.....with both apparently holding stong to their 2005 average prices, one wonders how this could be when much of Mexico's gas is bought from refiners in Texas after they refine Mexico's crude.

I've watched motor home and RV trailer sales hit the toilet on

EBAY over the past 6 weeks as gas prices rise out of control. I'll bet the current occupant and his oil soaked cronies can't wait to get out of office so they can untether their blind trusts and see just how much money they've made in the past 8 years. They'll be laughin all the way to the bank and it'll take them multiple truckloads to move all that cash.

As for me, I'm staying in Mexico where a 6 hour sight seeing tour today cost me less than $30 worth of gas. Because the govt sets the price of fuel here in Mexico and won't let it rise as our government has allowed, I suspect that the only place where american RV'ers can travel in comfort and economically will be in Mexico and maybe in certain Central American countries. Or they could go all the way to Venezuela where gas is just 35 cents a gallon...so I've heard....or Iraq where it's about the same for natives.....but not the US Armed Forces....right on Halliburton.

I'm bullish on camping, RVing, and Motor Homing in Mexico which is why a partner and I are developing a campground and trailer park on the Pacific coast of the state of Michoacan. We have enough land to host 50 oversized motorhomes and over 100 tent campers, and our property boasts 5 destinct beaches, each separated from the other by volcanic rock ridges that march into the sea. We have enough beaches to satisfy homosexuals of both genders, topless/bottomless/or traditionally clad swimmers, and everything in between.

But I think what we'll do is just divide the beaches into areas half for those who like the racier writings of Garrison Keillor and the other half for those who like the slower paced Lake Wobegone fare. I hope they all come down in their vintage airstream trailers. There's a sunset waiting for them at every campsite. John H. Higgins cazador@nnex.net

I have been a fan of Salon from its early days and a subscriber ever since they had to go that way. There have been many writers and interesting diversions, but I have really come to love and look forward to every one of G. Keillor's essays, especially since I had a son who used to live in Minnesota, and married a lovely lady from there.

Garrison, you are a national treasure, and your little well-written slices of sanity help me cope with the reign of the Current Occupant, and the too-many months before his removal, but--how we will clean up this mess?

I worry about that and how Prez Obama will be blamed for more messes to come. Is McCain the reason he was appointed--sure to lose, and therefore the Repugs escape blame for this toxic morass we are in?

Nancy

Ferndale, WA