Lighthouses in a landlocked state? Well yes, if you look at it right.
I'm probably not the only one who sometimes dawdles or procrastinates when they arrive in a new town. Sometimes there are so many choices, and they seem like such big projects, that you do nothing. That's why it helps to work for a dog. They have more sense than we do sometimes. They just want to get out there, and without thinking about it too hard.
So we hike to the first cell tower or radio antenna site. These are more than the source of cellphone and wireless internet signals; they are navigational aids to the entire lifestyle of an RV boondocker. They are to me what an old-fashioned lighthouse was to a seamen. They don't look like each other, exactly, but they have other similarities. Both are tall edifices that stand out and emit powerful signals of electromagnetic radiation. The main difference between their respective "lights" is the wavelength, which is a million times longer for the cell towers.
Ahh but the old lighthouses are things of beauty, you say. A solitary lighthouse-keeper saved the lives of seamen. And the modern cell tower is merely a bland, utilitarian, tech-wiz gadget. But remember that in their day lighthouses on a sea coast were utilitarian, high-tech wonders too, with powerful lamps and Herschel lenses. They weren't put there to be picturesque.
Over the years lighthouses became icons of the postcard industry. Must something be obsolete in order to romanticize it? Will people at the end of this century flutter their eyelashes at the remains of cell towers of our own quaint and charming times?
I'm probably not the only one who sometimes dawdles or procrastinates when they arrive in a new town. Sometimes there are so many choices, and they seem like such big projects, that you do nothing. That's why it helps to work for a dog. They have more sense than we do sometimes. They just want to get out there, and without thinking about it too hard.
So we hike to the first cell tower or radio antenna site. These are more than the source of cellphone and wireless internet signals; they are navigational aids to the entire lifestyle of an RV boondocker. They are to me what an old-fashioned lighthouse was to a seamen. They don't look like each other, exactly, but they have other similarities. Both are tall edifices that stand out and emit powerful signals of electromagnetic radiation. The main difference between their respective "lights" is the wavelength, which is a million times longer for the cell towers.
Ahh but the old lighthouses are things of beauty, you say. A solitary lighthouse-keeper saved the lives of seamen. And the modern cell tower is merely a bland, utilitarian, tech-wiz gadget. But remember that in their day lighthouses on a sea coast were utilitarian, high-tech wonders too, with powerful lamps and Herschel lenses. They weren't put there to be picturesque.
Over the years lighthouses became icons of the postcard industry. Must something be obsolete in order to romanticize it? Will people at the end of this century flutter their eyelashes at the remains of cell towers of our own quaint and charming times?
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