Thursday, January 31, 2008 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
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We like serendipity
I had planned to leave Oliver Lee yesterday, pick up the replacement for the compromised credit card a friend so graciously forwarded to me to General Delivery at USPS in Alamogordo and head westward once again. But I couldn't confirm online that it had arrived on time and since I didn't need to leave on any schedule, I signed up for one more night here and took a nap. We like naps too.
In time I opened my eyes and what should they slowly focus on way out beyond my toes, filling the aperture of the windshield - two horizontal red stripes. Could that be the rig I think it is?
I think that's Skylark
Yep, that's Skylark. Skylark is a well known Lazy Daze RV, home of Andy Baird, moderator of the Yahoo Life With A Lazy Daze RV discussion group. Andy is the guy largely responsible for my being here today and it's about time he knew it.
We like serendipity.
That was yesterday
Today Andy's friends Kate and Terry pulled in with Cholula Red and set up across the way. I may be here for a while.
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
When Hope Dies
When you give up on hope, something even better happens than it not killing you, which is that in some sense it does kill you. You die. And there's a wonderful thing about being dead, which is that they—those in power—cannot really touch you anymore. Not through promises, not through threats, not through violence itself. Once you're dead in this way, you can still sing, you can still dance, you can still make love, you can still fight like hell—you can still live because you are still alive, more alive in fact than ever before. You come to realize that when hope died, the you who died with the hope was not you, but was the you who depended on those who exploit you, the you who believed that those who exploit you will somehow stop on their own, the you who believed in the mythologies propagated by those who exploit you in order to facilitate that exploitation. The socially constructed you died. The civilized you died. The manufactured, fabricated, stamped, molded you died. The victim died.
And who is left when that you dies? You are left. Animal you. Naked you. Vulnerable (and invulnerable) you. Mortal you. Survivor you. The you who thinks not what the culture taught you to think but what you think. The you who feels not what the culture taught you to feel but what you feel. The you who is not who the culture taught you to be but who you are. The you who can say yes, the you who can say no.