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The News and Novelty Syndrome

Every Age has not only its own spirit, its zeitgeist, but also its characteristic vices and diseases. The Information Age sucks us into paying attention to too much trivial and trashy "news". For travelers in particular, the same syndrome manifests itself as Novelty idolatry.

I was feeling very pleased with the world on the last day of November when this (un-edited, un-photoShopped) sunset crowned an excellent day.



I was camped on some BLM land, on the western edge of New Mexico, watching my first Arizona sunset in over three and a half years. For some reason it was important to me not to enter Arizona before December 01. As luck would have it, a winter storm was arriving the first day in Arizona.

On this autumn's migration it was satisfying to have connected the Colorado/San Juan river systems with the Rio Grande, and back again to the Colorado/Gila system with a minimum amount of driving. It was sweet revenge to revisit the place near Grand Junction where I almost lost my little poodle four years ago, and to revisit while he was still alive and could share the revenge.

In just a couple months of returning to the road I've had a change to visit, camp with, and hike with Wandrin Lloyd, the Box Canyon-ites (Mark and Bobbie) and a new RV blogger friend Kurumi Ted.

And yet I felt silly putting this photo cliche on my blog. Gee, do you think there are any sunset photos on Picasa, Flickr, Facebook, etc.?! Sometimes novelty just doesn't count. It's especially important for a blogger not to forget that.

Comments

Ted said…
I must say your timing is impeccable, Boonie. While I am typing there is cold, wet, white stuff falling from the sky outside my window. Quite a change from the weather we had a mere five miles away and a handful of days ago on BLM land.

I'm holding out until the forecasters have a better handle of what next week's weather will be like. Someone has to do it.
Yes Ted it was good timing, although I'm not exactly balmy over here in Safford. Mt. Graham disappeared during the storm. Still, the wind and rain were milder than what they were threatening us with.