Getting Ready for the Next Big Adventure

Warren only has about 2 days left of teaching, and then one week of proctoring finals.  We have someone to lease our house (complete with cat) starting in July.  Most of the furniture has been promised to friends, and the amount of STUFF has decreased impressively.

NOW, WHERE are we going!?  We don't know yet.  We are planning to head out in July to visit friends and family in Washington/Oregon/California, and we hope to get an invitation from Peace Corps before that, which will tell us where, when, what.

BUT it's not guaranteed that we'll get an invite....we have alternative plans, although they are a bit imprecise until we know whether or not we're doing Peace Corps soon.  If PC doesn't happen, we plan to go to someplace in Latin America, probably Guatemala or Ecuador....maybe Peru.

Some of the STUFF I got rid of is lots of camera gear, mostly my Nikkon stuff.  With the lenses it was a bit heavy and bulky, and I decided to buy a super-zoom.  Not the same quality as the dslr, but there are always tradeoffs, and for now portability is primary.   VERY small and lightweight, with a 42x optical zoom, GPS, and a swivel screen (important for us short folks, especially) - 3 inch screen plus an EVF.   Also can do manual focus, and has Aperture and Shutter priority settings, various focus and exposure options (including spot, which is my favorite for far-off critters).  No RAW, but the features I looked for were the GPS (for documenting critters), decent image quality, size, zoom, and I like having both a screen and a viewfinder.

Here are some photos showing the zoom capability:

In the top one, the cup is pretty much in the center of the photo - the lower one is zoomed in (cloudy cup because it's iced).

Should be great for critters in trees, etc., and lots of other stuff.

More later - I'm getting to know about the MANY various functions.

I will post here when we know where we're going.