Saturday, 11/13/21 — Questa, NM — The transmission defiantly refused

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I awoke this morning fully intending to return to the Latir Peak Wilderness to tag a few more of the high points I'd laid eyes on yesterday up on Latir Peak Mesa, but after I'd finished committing my breakfast staple of hash browns and eggs with hot sauce to my stomach and set off driving toward the trailhead I discovered that my car was no longer consenting to uphill travel. The transmission defiantly refused to engage with anything that was not perfectly level or descending. This was a problem, because the trailhead was located several hundred feet higher in elevation than my campsite.

After a bit of thought I decided my best course of action would be to see if I could extract myself from where I was in the middle of nowhere and head back down to Questa, where I'd at least be back on asphalt roads and could call AAA to play my Free Tow card. However, sometime during the approximately 15 minutes it took me to drive from my campsite down to Questa I forgot that my transmission was threatening mutiny and ended up pulling into the local library parking lot and walking inside to hop on their WiFi for a while.

The second my phone connected it blew up. Several dozen texts came through in varying levels of concern and agonized panic regarding my whereabouts and my alive-or-dead status. I'd only been off grid for what, two days? Maybe three? Jesus. Notably absent were any distraught messages from my family or close friends; this particular barrage was entirely the work of a couple persons of interest with whom I'd only recently acquainted myself, and whom I'd clearly failed to apprise of one of my most crucial directives:

Don't worry until a full week has passed without contact.

The library's WiFi was at best not bad and at worst not good so I left and drove all the way to Taos hoping to find a nice coffee shop where I could relax with a cup of joe and maybe a bagel and spend a few hours downloading pirated movies and chatting with my dark web contacts about guns and drugs over an unsecured network. I parked at that one free public parking lot right there on the main drag (you know the one) and then went wandering around town looking for a nice coffee shop and failing to find one.

I kept checking the Maps app on my phone to try and look for coffee shops but my phone kept telling me No internet connection. I couldn't understand it. You're telling me there's no internet in Taos, New Mexico? This is an important place! It's got art! It's got history! It's got grocery stores and liquor stores and a recycling center! And rich people, and tourists! Et cetera! How is there no internet connection here?

I was angrily stomping my way up some alley I don't remember where when suddenly the thought occurred to me.

Wait.

Maybe?…

No.

No fuckin way.

…

Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data

…

Oh.

I see.

How long has my cell data been turned off?

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_{The inspired, inerrant, & authoritative journals of @brandt. Wanderings & thoughts documented on a 3-week delay. PRIVATE. DO NOT READ.}