Thursday September 21st 2023

Rain was not as much of a threat today than the last couple days. The sun found breaks in the clouds more often than not during the day. The temperature climbed to about ninety, the humidity wasn’t oppressive and a nice breeze blew much of the day. After sunset as I’m writing this blog entry a little rain is falling on the roof.

This was a day for plans and contingency plans. On the original planning side of things I booked the last gap in my fall itinerary. From the end of October to just before Thanksgiving I’ll be in the Orlando area. Following that stay I have a series of two week stays booked until the middle of January. I have a three week gap at the end of January that still needs to be filled for this winter. Most of my options are on the expensive side.

My need for contingency plans are more immediate. My next stop, starting Monday the 25th at Myakka River State Park is threatened by flood waters. Some areas of the park including some campsites were closed as of Monday September 11th. As of yesterday most of the park and all of the campsites are open again, but who knows what water levels might do. The big unknown is my stay at an Army Corp of Engineers Park starting on October 6th. If congress fails to reach a budget resolution by October 1st, non essential federal facilities are likely to be closed down. How long it will take congress to reach a budget or continuing resolution decision will decide my fate. Once again there are options, but the cost to enjoyment ratio is not in my favor.

I am also dealing with the need for some electronic contingency plans. Several devices are making me aware of their impending need for replacement. The most minor of them is the computer I’m typing this blog entry into. The “s” key on the keyboard doesn’t want to register all the time. My already poor spelling is exacerbated by occasional missing letter. For now I’m going to live with the issue and hope it doesn’t get worse quickly.

The second device that is starting to complain is my Canon SX740 point and shoot camera that I use to take most of the pictures for this blog. The motor for the lens seems to be catching as it zooms or focuses. Getting it fixed is probably not realistic. If I could find a place it would probably cost more than I want to spend. A direct replacement is also not an option. They don’t seem to make this model anymore. I am now camera shopping online. In the mean time it just takes longer to setup each photo.

My biggest failing electronic device is also the smallest and most important device. The display on my nearly three year old phone is coming loose and some of the control points are shorting out causing lines on the display. I have to handle the phone gently and use ear buds to listen to audio as the speakers are also impacted. Before the phone started to get bad, I had planned to replace it in November or December of this year at the three year anniversary. Now I may need to replace it sooner and the new Google Pixel models I was planning on getting don’t come out until October.

I have all kinds of ideas to satisfy the various contingencies. Hopefully the travel related ones will solve themselves and not become issues. For the device related issues, I am buying time with care and work arounds while I figure out what to buy as a replacement. The phone is the only one that I don’t have a backup device that can be used.