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
Emptiness
Emptiness shouldn't be thought of as a negative. A lot of people misconstrue that as meaning the opposite of something is nothing. But this is something slightly different. I don't want to get into comparative religious things because that's a complicated topic. But if we were to think about it, the problem of life and death has to do with what comes in between, and what comes in between is an awful lot of suffering. We're not just talking about the pain of suffering, we're talking about suffering. Our common everyday parlance it's called stress. That's a kind of suffering and we die from this. From the standpoint of Zen Buddhism this life isn't some sort of stage mock-up for something else that comes after this. This is what we have. We're right here and we're being in this present moment. What you want to think about when you think about emptiness is a way in which to stay present. Just as, in a way, in a very strange kind of concept, there really is no such thing as time. There's no dress rehersal for anything.
The Artful Mind, Reverend Sohaku Flagg, Rinzai Buddhist priest, in an interview with Nanci Race, Jan/Feb 2003