A couple of years ago my brother, Jeff, had a pretty good idea and started a Myspace page that included a few of his hunting and fishing exploits.  The idea of having a daily log to keep track of those adventures really started to sound pretty cool.  I had already started my own personal WordPress site, and started to wonder if I could put something together that would help us keep track of our daily hunting, fishing, and outdoor routines.

I sat down over a few nights, and started to put the site together.  The hardest part about the whole thing was picking a domain name.  After mulling a few names over, we finally decided on SimplyOutdoors.  I didn’t want to have the site be strictly hunting and fishing – because we are definitely about more than just those two things;  and I wanted the name to ring true and reflect our love of the outdoors.  I thought SimplyOutdoors accomplished just that.

Honestly, when we first started the site it was only originally intended for our enjoyment, as well as some family members.  At the time we had family in South Carolina, and having the site allowed them to keep up with what was happening in our outdoor world’s up here.  But somehow, and I’m honestly not even sure how it happened, I stumbled across Kristine’s Hunt Smart, Think Safety blog.

After reading her blog a few times, and leaving comments, she of course started to leave comments on our site as well.  At this time, since this was a few years ago, the OBS was only in its’ infancy.  It didn’t take long, though, for me to discover Rex’s Deer Camp Blog, Matt’s Bright Ideas Blog, as well as a few others who were already members of the OBS.

Once I discovered their sites, read the great things they were writing about the outdoors, and figured out what the OBS was all about, it didn’t take more than two seconds to slap the OBS badge on our site.  As I said before, SimplyOutdoors was originally just going to be a journal of our outdoor exploits, but after discovering the OBS I knew that we could definitely contribute to its cause, and be a powerful and positive voice for the outdoors.

Since becoming a member we have had nothing but positive experiences with the OBS.   Its members are truly like a family.  I consider most of them to be my friends, and even though none of us have never met, I think that the things we write about are definitely having an impact on people’s perceptions about hunting, fishing, hiking, etc.  I have seen the OBS blogroll explode since I originally joined, and I glad to see it that way.  And although I don’t have nearly enough time to visit everyone’s blogs, I know that as the membership grows, so will our legitimacy when it comes to outdoor issues.

In a nutshell, the OBS is a community;  a community of bloggers, friends, and people who truly appreciate the outdoors.  We are proud to be one of its members.

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