Saturday, January 19, 2008 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
< previous day | archives | next day >
Ah the luxury of sleeping in
My version at least - I was up a 3:30 am or so for a while, then back to bed until 6:00 am, and now it's 11:00 am and I've finally had my breakfast; soon I'll do my morning ablutions and get on with the day. It's so nice to finally have a slightly warmer spot, good internet access, and working email that I've dropped everything to luxuriate in the plenty. By the time you read this (posted on the 23rd - I've been lazy for several more of these nice days) I will have caught up on many days worth of delayed posts with just a few more to go.
There goes another credit card
I got a phone call from security; someone used my card to order something in Great Britain. Great. Now I have to deal with getting the replacement card sent to me here in New Mexico, in addition to the usual hassle of changing the card assigned to the various accounts I use for automated bill paying. This might be a good time to start using a separate card just for bill paying and see if that gives a clue to where the security breach is next time someone "steals" my card. I guess it's time to go get my free credit reports again and check for identity theft.
Today's journey: You don't think I'm leaving this good access do you?
Night camp
Site 8 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - very good signal and access speed ( I have to qualify this - during my January 2008 visit the signal and access speed was excellent - in January 2009 it was practically non-existent during the day and slow at night with unpredictable short periods of excellent access)
- Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park website
- Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park on my Nightcamps map
- Check the weather here
A Voyage and a Harbor
The native American was forced westward by the young escaping the limits of east coast villages that had been established only a generation or two earlier by parents escaping the limits of European villages. From then on, whether seeking a whale, rafting with Huck Finn, easy riding with Peter Fonda, or next week in Cancun, there has been a strong belief in America that happiness lies somewhere else. And yet as we find freedom we also rediscover loneliness. As geographer Yi-Fu Tuan says, we require both shelter and venture. We need freedom and support, silence and cacophony, the vast and distant but also the warm and near, a voyage and a harbor, the great adventure and the hobbit hole. Much of the iconography of our times gives little sense of this. Instead, the individual is treated as a self-sufficient, self-propelled vehicle moving across a background of other things, other places, and other people.