This time frame has coincided, of course, with the rise of the internet, Netflix, videostores, IPads, IPhones, personal computers, and hand-held video games, to the point where adults spend, on average, 8.5 hours a day with "screen time" for recreation.
It is so easy to say: get back to nature.
But, really, how easy is it these days?
For both Vicky and me, experiencing "nature" as children was as easy as walking out our front doors. I grew up at the edge of town where all I had to do was cross the street, climb a fence, and I was in open fields with streams that stretched for miles. And that's where I spent most of my free time--roaming around, "hunting" bullfrogs with my trusty bow and arrow, and playing "cowboys and Indians."
Vicky spent her childhood in a neighborhood that was on the edge of Seattle, with acres of woods everywhere. The kids would run in packs through these woods. She and her siblings rode their horses through those same areas.
Now it is all built up--all city, all houses. Gone forever are the trails that were everywhere, trails that existed because the kids hacked them out. Building forts from discarded wood pieces from construction sites (always with the permission of the builders--kids always asked in those days). Some summer days she would play on the beaches below her home, making rafts from boards found anywhere. Being in nature.
So it is no wonder we love living on our 5 acres on an island, with trees all around and complete solitude. And it is no wonder we are leaving in less than two days to find more nature to explore.
We won't "hunt" with our bows and arrows, or build forts, but we will be chidren once again--remembering those days long ago when we were totally free to run around everywhere in the fields and in the forests.
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