T-716: Wireless or Free

I have spent the last four hours trying to download new email software for my now antique Palm Centro phone---without success, I might add.  It raises the question as to how we will communicate when we are on the trip.  I must admit I assumed that we would be taking a cell phone and some sort of computer on the trip.  I have been thinking about getting a tablet or some other super light weight computer to go with us.

This would be the first time we have been on the road with this capacity.  The last major trip we took was the Nova Scotia trip.  We took the train to Montreal, then cycled to Vermont, Maine, the southwest coast of Nova Scotia to Halifax, then back to Quebec City via New Brunswick and the Gaspe Peninsula.  It must have been 1998, because I was still trying to write my final report for the Arts Centered Education grant.  I remember trying to find a pay phone to call Gary Anderson from the fishing village of Lunenberg and to let him know that I would be mailing (not emailing) it.  I finished the report at a small library and paid to print it, then mailed it back to Detroit.  Pure Shaun ridiculousness. 

All of this is a testament to:  1) the inexorable timeline of the trip....one has to leave for the trip even if one's work is not done (with me, a constant problem); 2) how long it has been since we have taken a long trip; and 3) how ridiculous it is to stay tied to your home when you are travelling.

The thought of taking electronics on bike is somewhat daunting.  The first concern is the weight, especially of a computer.  Dragging around extra pounds is a bad idea...though one we have tested over and over, and always found to be a bad idea.  (sidebar: on our England trip, I actually started the trip with a 3 lb picture guidebook to England.  I also was carrying and knitting a 4ft x 4ft lacy baby blanket which I meant to have sent before we left.  I perceive a pattern here.) 

The pleasures of the camp (?)

When we were on the Canadian Rockies trip, during which we had to rig a milk crate on the back of Wes' bike to carry Chazz ( a story for another day), one hostel owner told us we looked like the Beverly Hillbillies on Bikes.  This moniker is only too true.  Far be it for us travel without a coffee pot, or a spice kit, or a cook stove.  We love the pleasures of the camp, and want to be able to make full  meals at the end of the day.  We want to go to dinner or the theatre when we come to towns.  We need clothes for that.

Other bikers are decked out in lycra; they huddle in scrawny lightweight sleeping bags on the ground.  They wander through towns in their Spandex, and gobble cold food.  They travel long distances and they travel light.  To our eyes, it looks like all the pleasures of a forced march. 


 We want to go slow, stop when we want to, and enjoy both the scenery and the company.  We really are tourists on bikes rather than bicycle tourers.  Going this way asks us to just be present where we are, to be alive to the world whereever we may be. 



Would you even want a computer in these conditions?



This brings back the question of staying connected to the larger world.  It is necessary to carry a cell phone, I suppose.  It is almost impossible to find a pay phone anymore.  I wonder about charging them, especially in the wilderness or far reaches of the road.  I suppose one doesn't.  I can't imagine there would be much service anyway.

The computer is another question.  I have assumed that I would post to this blog while abike.  I wonder how it will affect the trip?  I wonder if it will make me anxious about conditions like the three day rain we rode through on both the England and Canadian Rockies trips.  Despite our efforts, did anything we have stay dry? 

I wonder about it making us self-conscious.  One of the great pleasures of travelling is disconnecting from the constraints and worries and to-do lists of everyday life.  It is a positive value to live super simply.  Will a computer and an obligation to communication undo that?  Is it worth it?  I don't know.