Old books or nothing

Today's adventure took place: The Library and Bookstore.

As a group of nerds, library book sales are a family fieldtrip any time we hear of one. As an information junkie, I love reference books, my wife loves Stephen King books, and the kids are active readers as well, so a good time was had by all.

I did find a couple of books on fishing and the outdoors, and while they weren't new, they have so far proven to be very useful. One is a book on fly fishing with some good information about tackle, fly types, dressings and tactics, but not quite as comprehensive as I might like (again, I am an information Junkie - more on this in a future post). Another was a Bass hunters handbook, which I bought mainly to compare the tactics of today with the tactics from back in the day. The third is a look into the mind of the fisherman from an analyst's point of view. While technical at times, it is a good read.

The last book, and the treasure of the bunch (although the fly fishing book is a close second), is the everything outdoors book published by Outdoor Life sometime in the 60's. It is truly everything outdoors, from handling and cleaning of guns, to field dressing game (with pictures...eww), to tips for fishing, hiking, backpacking and camping. The section on camping is one of my favorites, as it has everything from building a fire and recipes, to tents and RV's. It is quite the retrospective, and fun to read about what was, at the time, state of the art. It is fun to see the old contraptions (for lack of a better term) that were designed for the nuclear familylifestyle that have since gone away. It makes me look at the different MP3 player accessories and specialty cooking gear of today and wonder how fondly we will look back at that stuff in 40 years......

The next day, we went to the big box bookstore to get a gift card for a birthday, and I had my own to use up, so again, family roadtrip. I was amazed at: 1) How difficult it was to find books on the outdoors. They were buried in an odd corner with sports books, heavily dominated by baseball and auto racing/collecting; 2) How few good outdoor guides there were - in both quantity and number of titles; 3) That most were geared toward the most extreme side of things or were Army field guides to survival, plants, etc.

There were more books on iPhones - quantity and number of titles - than on fishing, camping or hiking - maybe even combined. People have been living with, on and enjoying nature for hundreds of years, but there is more information available about cellphones than backpacks. Where is the accumulated knowledge? Boy Scouts? Or are the people out there keeping it to themselves? This is what I want to do with this blog - find the information on how to successfully get out and enjoy nature activities, and then share it so that the next person who wants to get out and try something new has a place to find everything they need to get out there.

Just leave the cellphone at home.