Thoughts on Record Availability and Camping

I am writing this post from a library in Sandpoint, Idaho. We have been spending the week camping in Montana and Idaho, mostly in State Parks. What is interesting is that much of the time we have been "out in the wilderness," with a few exceptions, we have had adequate internet reception. We stopped in Sandpoint to launder some clothes and I took the opportunity to sit in the local library.

What does this have to do with genealogy? Just about everything. I could do some serious research from some of the campgrounds we have stayed in during our trip. Far from being cut off from the world of genealogy, even on a camping trip in Northern Idaho, just a few miles from the Canadian border, I could, if I choose to do so, keep working on my own genealogical research or that of the many people I am attempting to assist.

Now, I am pretty sure that not many of you out there would see that as an opportunity. But for someone like me who has dozens of emails a day and a constant stream of questions, being connected is easier that coming back to a huge number of emails and a lot of other things undone. By the way, there are those who think I should either stop writing or stop putting up notices about going camping.