Another week closer to the Trail

So there's been a move out of our comfort zone and into a motel room not unlike some lodgings I'm likely to find along the AT next year. It's surprisingly roomy and if I had been on the trail for a week, practically palatial. Even though this is in a fairly urban area, and our room has a solid signal for WiFi, the bandwidth per device is throttled. So, just like being out in the wild with random WiFi and trying to get vlogs uploaded, it does take some planning. An eight-minute vlog produced at 720p instead of 1080p does save time, but I am finding even that, in these conditions still needs about two hours to upload. It's something other trail vloggers have run into and is another reason I'm packing a tablet. I can plug it in, open Youtube in a Chrome tab, start the upload and it happily chips way at the gigabytes with no further attention. That still leaves my cellphone in my pocket for running around town to gather supplies.

Video uploads are still a sticky problem as there are long sections with no WiFi to be found. I'm not going to pony up for a wildly expensive unlimited data plan and second smartphone on a second network with another expensive unlimited data plan. What will add to the challenge is my idea of doing neros instead of zeros. I want to pick a place near a resupply, before and after. I want to get into town early, find WiFi, a place to charge my brick and leave my tablet while I get groceries. I would like to think I will find those sorts of places easily enough. When done, just head out for the nearest camp spot and binge on town food there.

I have now repeatedly hiked a nearby preserve. It is typical Florida, generally pancake flat. There are some sections of trail torn up by feral pigs, crisscrossed with roots or other features which make sections of the loop trail I've been using slightly more interesting. I'm still waiting for a good cold forecast to reserve the (one) campsite there so I can make sure my clothing and sleeping options are good ideas. I'm also dealing with some plantar fasciitis, so it's good to get that figured out and a pattern established to maintain it. There's no ice machine at this motel, but I have a steel water bottle that I took a little water out of and put in the freezer. I'm rolling my foot on it as I type.