3 Aug 2015

Day 1!! Things were moving along quite smoothly this morning. I placed a paper license plate on the car saying “GONE” which I planned to photograph and upload to Tumblr as my avatar later in the day.

We complete lots of on-line paper work relating to the sale of the house, pack some more items into our Forester, and then I try to get my photo on the computer. . . disaster.

The computer will not recognize my camera. I spend an hour trying to fix the problem myself. Then I call Canon for help. After 45 min of trying various interventions over the phone, the Canon guy decides it is my computer. Off to Best Buy for some Geek Squad help. Their conclusion: my computer is probably too old to handle the new Canon software. But there is an easy solution. All I need is an inexpensive SD card reader which plugs into a USB port, and I can get photos to my computer that way! I’m happy – that’s all I want to do. Ah, but now it is almost 3PM! Do we depart today, or wait until tomorrow? We both agree that leaving today will work. We only have about 150 miles to go and Fowlers Hollow State Park does not look like the kind of place that is likely to be booked up on a Monday night.

Off we go, with our reserve water supply sloshing and slapping the side of its container in the back of the car. We have a smooth drive towards the park and decide to break for dinner at a small, nearly empty diner about 50 minutes from our destination. Good thing we stop! The food is good- filling and inexpensive, and there really is not any other place to stop between there and the park. We arrive at Fowlers Hollow about 7:30 PM. It’s a bit warm, but the sun is shining and only two other parties are here. We set up our tent, sort through some gear, journal a bit by dim headlamp, and turn in for the night.