I was getting that sinking feeling that I had missed my turn. Sure enough, I ended up 60 miles away from where I was "supposed" to be. It happens every now and then. So what?
You can't be lost near the edges of the Plains of San Agustin in central New Mexico. It is unique, or at least rare. It's a chance to escape the sameness of mountains.
Lately I've been doing better than usual at having good camping experiences in places that I tend to neglect. Why the neglect? Is it just internet addiction? There is usually wi-fi somewhere, although it is expensive to use it unless you have a will of iron to resist eating there.
But I have it easy. What if I was a real city-slicker with some extreme, ideological diet? How would you survive with the tiny grocery stores? Western Family, and Shur-Fine brands are the only things that aren't priced at a confiscatory level. There are a few staples available, and with a tub of dry goods and canned goods in the rig, you should be alright for awhile.
The trick is to be flexible and patient. 'Flexibility' means that you stop trying to impose a pre-conceived pattern on your new location, and you stop overlooking what is actually there. You come into a rural area with consumer habits of instant gratification. You come in thinking that you can't solve the problems of life without a busy commercial strip with all the usual big box stores along it. But people who live in these areas have some way of surviving. They have houses that need to be repaired, dogs and horses that need veterinarians, and cars that break. There has to be someway to do it.
But I have become so spoiled by the convenience of small cities that the survival skills of truly rural areas have become exotic to me. This makes me feel weak and stupid.
Very well then. I'm here in Datil, NM. Let's take it as a challenge. Sure, that sounds like a mere platitude. But what if this sense of being in some kind of vacuum is not visualized as austerity, but rather, is visualized as wide open space to expand into -- as wide and as open as the plains of San Agustin themselves.
You can't be lost near the edges of the Plains of San Agustin in central New Mexico. It is unique, or at least rare. It's a chance to escape the sameness of mountains.
Lately I've been doing better than usual at having good camping experiences in places that I tend to neglect. Why the neglect? Is it just internet addiction? There is usually wi-fi somewhere, although it is expensive to use it unless you have a will of iron to resist eating there.
But I have it easy. What if I was a real city-slicker with some extreme, ideological diet? How would you survive with the tiny grocery stores? Western Family, and Shur-Fine brands are the only things that aren't priced at a confiscatory level. There are a few staples available, and with a tub of dry goods and canned goods in the rig, you should be alright for awhile.
The trick is to be flexible and patient. 'Flexibility' means that you stop trying to impose a pre-conceived pattern on your new location, and you stop overlooking what is actually there. You come into a rural area with consumer habits of instant gratification. You come in thinking that you can't solve the problems of life without a busy commercial strip with all the usual big box stores along it. But people who live in these areas have some way of surviving. They have houses that need to be repaired, dogs and horses that need veterinarians, and cars that break. There has to be someway to do it.
But I have become so spoiled by the convenience of small cities that the survival skills of truly rural areas have become exotic to me. This makes me feel weak and stupid.
Very well then. I'm here in Datil, NM. Let's take it as a challenge. Sure, that sounds like a mere platitude. But what if this sense of being in some kind of vacuum is not visualized as austerity, but rather, is visualized as wide open space to expand into -- as wide and as open as the plains of San Agustin themselves.
Comments
You've got the right attitude, "with a tub of dry goods and canned goods in the rig, you should be alright for awhile." Think "Master and Commander" and soon you'll be living without that solar-suck of a refrigerator too. :)
Jim
Jim