The Loser User Day 1

So, yes, as DJ has noted below my perfect plans to chronicle our adventures has already gone awry. After discovering no internet access aboard the SSBadger, I was not deterred. I photographed our arrival, departure and various stops along the way for the first 12 hours of our journey. This included a group shot of us before we boarded in Ludington, pictures of our Envoy being loaded, people eager to waive goodbye to us along the way, seagulls following the ship, and our arrival in Manitowac, Wisconsin.

We decided to take shifts driving through the night, and made a breakfast stop at a beautiful little town, Blue Earth, Minnesota. This tidy, petite town is home to a huge statue of the Jolly Green Giant, greeting you at the entrance to the fairgrounds. His side kick "Lil Sprout'' greets you at a gas station as you enter off the highway. Great photo op...made sure to get some good pictures there.

So onward we go to our final destination, determined to finish our marathon to Mitchell, South Dakota. We arrived at 10 am today, Mitchell time. Our room wasn't ready, so we decided to visit the infamous Mitchell Corn Palace. After carefully photographing the place, including group pictures of my reluctant travel companions, we headed to the local park for some down time while we waited for our room.

This seemed to be the perfect time to download the 100+ pictures I had taken along the way...since we still couldn't find a wireless signal, I could at least get this out of the way. After plugging in my card reader, I opened I- Photo to download the pics from my camera. Nothing. Impatiently I pulled the card out of the reader. WARNING!!!! WARNING!!! I felt like Will Robinson (only us 40+ somethings will get that). Clearly something wasn't right, the card reader wasn't reading the disk after that, and when I loaded the card back into the camera, I discovered everything I shot was GONE!

The photo below was an expression of that moment, as anyone who knows me would understand. Lost photos are like losing a limb! My carefully planned documentary of our event is now missing its first chapter! I am a sore loser user, but I have trained my companion DJ enough to recognize a good photo op!

So, we'll go back and reshoot the Corn Palace before we leave...but the departure shots are gone! We'll have to relive those in our memories! And so far...those memories are great!

_KRS

Here is a re-shoot of the Corn Palace: