Don't assume this is an attack against conservatives, or trying to set up a conservative vs liberal argument as there are plenty of conservative people who are against this war. This is about the ethics of mass killing in the name of some idealogy.

(e:joshua) and all the other service age war mongers. If you are "brave" enough to call for war, then why don't you make the real commitement and join the army. They would love to have you. They even have walk in registration places like the one on Sheridan dr, just before Niagara Falls, blvd.

I am willing to admit I would never join the army for the values that we are fighting for in Iraq and that includes democracy and capitalism. I think that nations will never devlop, anything like we formed, when it is imposed from the outside How would you react if our government was imposed from the outside. And this is not about Saddam Hussein being so bad, because there are hundreds of equally vicious dictators we aren't removing - many of which we installed.

But (e:joshua), you vocally stand up and support this war and these values, so why don't you p byour life on the line. It's so easy to say we need war if you aren't the one fighting.

First, I am sorry for anyone that was personally affected by another act of senseless violence. However, I disagree with Joshua, we can never kill all the terrorists, it is just too ambiguous a target, it will never happen.

It is so typical for people like you [inlink]joshua,15[/inlink] , and I don't mean conservatives here, to deem others less intelligent, followed by a logic-free emotional rant involving the written equivalent of screaming. Clearly, (e:joshua) , you share the same passionate cry for death, that the terrorists themselves used to carry this out.

It is always sad when someone dies for someone else's ideology but we have to remember that Americans and Britons have killed this many Native Americans, Iraqi, Indians, Afganistani, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese civilians a hundred thousand times over in our "greater" interest of free markets and natural resources. We are just witnessing the unfortunate other side of the war on civilians.

Thankfully, it was overcast today. I managed to keep my sunburn under control. We saw some really pretty geology mixed with some ugly people, seems like a typical mix here in vermont. Once again, (e:matthew) has tons of nice pics from the scenery.

I still have no cell service. If you have t-mobile don't think about moving to vermont till your contract is up. I will be home July 9th for anyone looking to get ahold of me.

--update I finally got some service in MA.


Along the way, we found wifi in Brattleboro, VT near this mailbox. I love finding wifi networks in random places.

Dummer and Dummerston We ended up at some little state park. The land was nice and it was only $14 for the four of us. They had showers but I couldn't shower because I was too burned from the sun yesterday.



The bad part was the rain. It rained last night and I had my only shoes outside the tent. They were out there because someone had used the bathroom and shat on the floor and as fate would have it, I stepped in it. So now I have wet, although clean shoes for the rest of the rainy trip. (E:matthew) 's only pants got soaked too and now he is wearing short and getting eaten alive my mosquitos.



The weather is still expecting rainstorms from now till the end of our trip. I hope something changes.

[size=m]Computer to bird communique [/size]



The birds here have learned to interface with the computer. (E:matthew) records them and then plays it with the laptop outside. The bird respond and eventually come check out the computer. It is very cyborgian. Who needs to learn the bird calls or buy wooden bird callers anymore. (E:matthew) has great pictures of this.

The last time I chimed in, we were in Brattleboro, VT.

(E:matthew) and I are so freakin sunburned from a skinny dipping mecca called the Ledges in VT , (e:terry) is not burned so bad



We had a great time jumping off the ledges. Some kid and his girlfriend climbed up to the top rock, the climbed 30 feet into the air up a tree, and then jumped from there. I lost those kind of guts at 23 I think. I was able to swing and jump from the lower two ledges.



There were lots of naked people, but just like every freakin' nudist treasure we have visited, everyone else naked at the place was 50+, but 80% of those people are 70+. I don't mean to sound ageist and if the old people and happy naked, more power to them, however, there comes a point were it just isn't even fun to watch people's old flab flop. I saw enough sagging and drooping for a lifetime.

I always wonder why there are no naked younger people, by young I mean 30 and younger. I can't imagine anyone has any reason to be shy around most of the people at these places and a lot of the places themselves are freakin' amazing.

It seems like in all the old books that dave has, there are plenty of young folk. Of course most of the info was from the 70s and most of those people are probably the same old people I saw today only saggier.

At least there were some people. A lot of the places we looked at were totally deserted, seemingly unused since they were written about in the guide book.

One place was converted from nudist to clothed but it was awesome anyways. It was a marble quary that they converted to a swimming hole. It was totally amazing, like a giant marble swimming pool, that could hold hundreds of people and went down about 70 feet. (Link to (e:matthews)'s journal with pics and web site)

When we were in Brattleboro, we checked the weather. To our dissapointment, we found that it is supposed to thunderstorm the rest of our trip from portland, ME to Norfolk, VA I so there is no escaping it.

Here are some pics of (e:matthew) applying sunburn aloe.

Little tidbits of information. I never want to be at the mercy of any little tibits of cross-generational, non-indexed, unsearchable text that might as well have been written on little scaps of paper and cast to sea in a bottle.

Weird place, it was an inertesting glimpse into country gay culture and definatly wasn't for me. Half is a nudist family area on a creek with some pools and the rest seems to be a sleezy outdoor bathhouse. We should have known when we saw the porn magazines strewn through the wood.

We talked to some guys named Al and Kevin drinking beer in the creek. The only thing I liked about him was that he guessed I was the youngest out of the three. He tried to get me to leave him my sock - said he had some foot fetish. He tried with (e:matthew) too. I told him that socks arn't free. He tried to impress us by telling us about his love for Cher. The whole thing was like a comedy skit.

Al told us that a very rich woman owned the estate the creek was on and left it to the state on condition they provided a nudist area and allowed gay people. The scary part is there is also some whacko who hunts gay people with a gun. They showed us all the bullets everywhere, some targets and two large trees he shot down. Apparently, he is some 300lb mountain man with long, greasy black hair and he hates that gay people go there. The whole thing was too much for me, it seemed not worth ever visiting again although the run in with Al and Kevin was an interesting glimpse into poor country gay culture and Cher is ironically a part of it.

The last two days were great accept for the massive amount of flies on the fourth. I rowed a lot. My arms feel much more buff, but it really has no purpose as I will spend the next month typing.

Today, we left camp at the lake to head over to some beach on a creek. (E:matthew) hates moving to new places. Even the move between camp sites makes him crazy.

Wow, the things we forgot. Toiletpaper, propane, and pants. Who needs pants. Especially if you don't have toiletpaper ;) . No luckily, there were ferns and a great big lake to wash up in around the island.

We made it through a huge lightning and rain storm by building a makeshift shelter out of tarps. The lightning hit the lake.

(e:matthew) came up with the best business idea ever. We will be rich soon. Just wait.

These are the journals I wrote everyday but couldn't send.

I am so crippled without the internet. I was looking at dave's xm radio. It works in the middle of nowhere because it is listening to a satellite. I want to know how xm knows that dave's paid his bill. I asked him if it had a simcard. He said that he didn't have any idea what a sim card was. Oh god, I just want to know how it works right now.

Whenever we go on these trips I end up having so many questions. I think I must ask the internet 1000 questions a day in one form or another.

Not having it seems so cut off.