I just returned from an island with no internet, no phone (neither landline nor wireless), but excellent food and companions,and surprisingly good weather. It's nice to unhook once in a while.

I am jealous

I get huge "decompression value" from a camp chair in front of a campfire.

Yup. I had a friend in college who was a complete techno-addict until he took a couple of days disconnected. He turned into a bigger luddite than me.

Wildman calls it "Green Therapy". A basic necessity of life for me.

I might add that technically I was "working" (albeit as an unpaid volunteer), assessing fossils in a remote location within Channel Islands National Park. It really is "Green Therapy" when work and leisure are indistinguishable.

I went from Dallas, Texas to a small community in central Florida. There are a lot of horse pastures and, on the other side of 484, it's nothing but trees. My anxiety has increased. How is being on an island suppose to help?

Jeanette Isabelle

Interesting question. I spent my childhood in Dallas and I yearned for the outdoors, which I found by moving west to Arizona and California for college and an NPS career. You, obviously, prefer a more urban environment.

The island in question, San Miguel Island, is remote even by park standards. I relish its solitude and remote location. The setting required exercise (hiking), and provided intellectual stimulation (what are those bony bits, anyway?), and gorgeous views of the mainland and the other Channel Islands,although San Nicolas didn't come into view until I was on the plane headed back to the mainland. There was interesting wildlife - Island Foxes, seals and other pinnipeds, and whales spouting offshore. Vegetation was turning a verdant green.

You could say the hills were alive....

Bingo!

Did you visit the Dallas Nature Center, renamed Cedar Ridge Preserve?

http://cedarhilltx.com/1700/Cedar-Ridge-Nature-Preserve

http://www.dallascounty.org/department/plandev/locations/19-escarpment.php

http://www.dallasparks.org/217/Cedar-Ridge-Preserve

Jeanette Isabelle