One month to go!

 Well, today is the one-month-to-go mark.  At this time next month, Amy and I will be in the air on our way to Houston!  It seemed so far away for so long. And now it is practically upon us!  What have I forgotten.  What do I need to buy, hem, fix, pack, convert, plan...  ?  

I have been practicing with my camera.  I even forced my photographer friend, Andrea, to read my million page manual for my camera.  She didn't even get a beer out of the deal, just coffee.  That was a rookie mistake on her part, suggesting we got out early to catch the morning light!  

Andrea, in a pub, beerless 

Because I turned out to be such an awesome photographer and Andrea really could give me no notes (haha, or I was so hopeless it wasn't worth her breath to even begin to teach me...  the actual truth but let's pretend), Andrea only gave me one homework assignment.  Or at least only one I remember... 

Figure out how to set up Bluetooth transfer from my camera to my travel computer.  My computer is so tiny, it only has one USB-C port, no SD card slot.  I tried, I really did.  I managed to get my camera to talk to my home computer but my travel computer, nope, 'no comprende, mi amiga'.  Which is a problem.  I need to use those pictures to keep my hoards of adoring blog fans (aka my mom) satisfied! 

I ended up buying a card reader.  It seems so work.  That's the thing that I have to wrap my head around as we get closer.  If I don't have it or I have it but it doesn't work, I won't be able to get another one.  No fly-by-night packing for this trip. 

I also bought two extra batteries and an external battery charger.  And an extra 64 GB memory card.  

Card reader

Next issue to try out, Word.  No Wi-Fi for many, many days.  So, no access to BlogSpot at all, let alone to post anything.  But you know I am going to write posts, just not be able to upload or post them.  This happened once before, when I was on a train,  maybe in China?  Anyway, I didn't have Word downloaded onto my travel computer so I had to use Notebook.  That was a formatting nightmare.  And then go back through my millions of photos to find the ones that happened on the day I wrote about.  And that was only for one day!!  What am I going to do for three weeks!  

So I tried to create a Word document, with text and photos to see if I could cut and paste right into Blogspot.  I can cut and paste the text.  And the photos.  Just not at the same time. I can live with that.  

Here is my test Word document.  Might as well start into the packing posts now...

Test to see if I can cut and paste from a Word document to Blogspot with pictures!

getting my packing working area ready

throwing stuff at my packing working area

Pigeon, as always, super helpful with all travel related tasks.  Supervision is very important. 

I have to get all of that culled, sorted and shoved into packs.  And I haven't even started adding regular, non-Antarctic clothes.  It's mostly rain pants to be honest.  

Ok, that's it for now.  Serious count down begins!