Since the summer of 2000, my husband and I have served as seasonal backcountry volunteers in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.  

     We’re assigned to a patrol cabin that has no running water or electricity, and its windows have bars to keep out the bears.  To reach the cabin you hike (or canoe) four miles from the nearest parking lot.  Our patrol area has twelve shoreline campsites scattered across three lakes. 

     We access our email several times a week by hiking to civilization.  And thanks to an antenna attached to a frying pan perched on our cabin roof we have amazing cellphone reception.  But because we are electrically-challenged, we check messages only once a day.  If you don’t hear back from us right away, now you know why!