Joy and Kyle contemplating a road trip:

But here’s the thing: We plan to be completely wired the entire time. As long as there will be cell phone coverage, we will be on the Internet and e-mail. We may even have a GPS with us.

I’m finding vacation auto-responders and voicemail away messages and statements like “I’ll be offline until mm/dd” increasingly strange. I mean, really, you’re going on some adventurous trip and you’re not bringing your cell phone/pda or a wireless laptop?

How would you blog? How would you look stuff up to do? What would you do without Google Maps??? Back in the day, that’d be the equivalent of not bringing a map. Or a compass.

The night before Stephanie and I left for North Carolina, I mentioned I’d be bringing my laptop, and she asked with an incredulity that I think surprised even her, “You are?” because she already knew the answer, even though it was such short trip. “Yeah, of course,” I thought to myself. I might want to work on something on the plane, or edit photos for the blog on the way home. Or maybe look something up at the hotel from the comfort of our room.

I could envision an uber-outdoorsy trip where I didn’t bring one (though I’d probably at least bring a cell phone), but this wasn’t that trip. In the end having it was instrumental in ensuring that we all got a decent plate of North Carolina barbecue for lunch on a Sunday in Chapel Hill.