I’ve been off the grid. Like, so far off the grid that I didn’t even have cell service, which maybe sounds like something that is not that bad, but I’m also not with my children, and having no means of contact with the outside world other than a payphone five miles down the road at a run-down bar in a near-ghost-town on the Similkameen River when you’re apart from your children means that you spend a lot of time wondering whether everything’s okay, and whether your husband would actually use the emergency number that you gave him – the number that reaches family friends within driving distance – if anything went wrong, or whether he would just send a BC Parks forest fire helicopter like the one that came roaring down the river valley just last night.

Which, in case you were wondering: having a big government helicopter swoop down on your campsite is really somewhat terrifying when it’s just you and your mom and you are separated from your children because even though your mom, an experienced camper, insists that those helicopters are just patrolling for forest fires, YOU will be convinced that they are coming for you because some terrorist group has abducted your family and is holding them until you give up that flash drive that a secret agent planted in your carry-on luggage at the airport. It maybe doesn’t help that you are reading thrillers about international Templar conspiracies to pass the time without your iPhone, sure, but still.

As of today, though, I am back in the land of the wired. It’s good to be here.