"I didn't try to contact anyone in town while we were out there. I looked at the map, but that's it," he says with a shrug. He's still really not in the habit of, say, texting people or reading the network all the time even though he probably should be. Keeping up with information is important. It just happens that not enough goes on here to need to be constantly glued to it.

"I hadn't considered there might be a limit, or that it would be as short as a day's walk. The snail phones I'm used to can cover most of the distance of the whole world," he continues. "We should try it out."