Green Mountain Serenity

Question: How many of you out there could survive an entire weekend in an area that had no cell phone service?

I mean no emails, no calls, no Facebook or LinkedIn. I know for a fact that within an hour, 75 percent of the members at my health club would be an inch or two away from taking hostages. These are people who check email or make calls while on the treadmill.

Welcome to the way of life in South Royalton, Vermont, a picturesque hamlet in the Green Mountain State that in order to get to, required a choice of driving either four or eight miles on unpaved roads fraught with rain-induced potholes and an occasional livestock meandering across your path.

It was there I spent last weekend.

So, as you might imagine in a location such as this, the absence of even basic cell phone service should not come as any type of surprise.  The nearest cell phone tower in fact was nearly 20 miles away in one of the state’s larger towns, which considering that Vermont  is the 49^th least populated state (ahead of only Wyoming)  you can safely assume that the term “larger” is up for heated debate.

If a South Royalton resident wants cable TV – forget Verizon, Time Warner or Comcast, their options were a satellite dish, or well, a satellite dish.

For some, a weekend without the use of a mobile phone would be akin to spending 48 hours in one of those sensory deprivation tanks.

But in truth I found it refreshing.

I much preferred the tranquil sounds of the gushing brook in back of the house and the rhythmic croaking of the bullfrogs to the frequent and dare I mention, annoying, customized mobile phone rings and the even more inane conversations that I feel so fortunate to have those people share with me in absurdly loud tones.

To my surprise I missed it not at all. In fact when I returned home after the five-hour return trip I felt more refreshed and stress free than I had in quite some time.

Then my phone rang and all the emails in queue began popping up.

Well it was nice while it lasted.