After some backtracking and more tedious driving through Arizona, we reached northwestern New Mexico. New Mexico seemed overall much more friendly (e.g., it had place to use the bathroom not beset by wild desert dogs), and altogether more civilized (e.g., actual cell coverage for most of the drive to Santa Fe).
I believe Betsy actually pointed out, "When he says civilized, he means there was enough cell coverage for the internet". I actually do agree with this: For a long time now, I've maintained you can measure the level of civilization of a culture by measuring the average flux of information through a unit quantity of space.
It's a thought experiment: Imagine you took a cubic meter of space in ancient Rome, and measured how much human information passed through it. Now compare to the middle ages, the Renaissance, through the invention of the telegraph, the radio, television, and now today. How much information we produce and transmit to each other has, on average, grown more dense. This correlates with civilization, or at least me not being cranky when I want to upload a photo.
Back to northwestern Mexico: I saw this cool-shaped rock formation in the distance, and it got even cooler as the last rays of sunset kissed it. "Wow", I said, "if only I were just a bit closer than 37 miles away, I bet that would be a really cool sunset picture!".
Naturally, the rock turned dark about thirty seconds after I shot this.
