Our “Friday the 13th” weekend began well enough, with a relaxing Date Night dinner and a viewing of The American President (one of our favorites). We then marveled at a spectacular harvest moon before calling it a night. Then Saturday happened.

Saturday’s setbacks occupied the rest of the day. One of those setbacks had to do with Jon’s computer crashing, which necessitated this, our first blog composed and posted using only an iPhone. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

The day began as it typically does, with walking the dogs around our camping loop. But after attaching their leashes and getting them all excited about going outside, Cliff tried to open the door and the handle failed. Yes, we were trapped inside. So Jon opened the emergency exit (the back window) and removed the screen from its frame. After climbing out the window and onto the bumper, he made his way to the door and opened it from the outside. That enabled us to walk the dogs but it was just the beginning of our problems.

Upon returning to Cloud 9, Jon set to work on fixing the door handle. A quick assessment revealed we had lost a screw, causing the internal mechanism to get off track. So we unhitched the rig and Jon headed to Home Depot to find a replacement screw. Had he thought about it, he could have also picked up new screen and spline for the rear window, but he was focused on solving one problem at a time.

Back at camp and armed with the replacement screw, Jon was finally able to reseat the handle and return the door to working order. The rear window screen would have to wait until after Bloody Marys and The New York Times. Alas, the latter wasn’t to be.

As Jon tried to start his computer, he was confronted with the dreaded “recovery” notification: “Your device needs to be repaired.” Was it a false alarm? Something more serious? When in doubt, reboot!

Unfortunately, it was a real crash. So much for spending the morning reading The New York Times.

One possible solution was to download a recovery version of Windows onto a flash drive using Cliff’s computer, and then reboot Jon’s computer from the flash drive. But because we had no flash drive on hand, Cliff had to go to Target to get one. We then tried to restore Jon’s computer. Didn’t work.

It was time for a nap.

Afterwards, Jon attempted to repair the rear window screen using the old screen and spline. Didn’t work. Jon had to go back to Home Depot for new materials, but not until after cocktails.

As Cliff prepared dinner, Jon repaired the screen. Finally, at 9 pm, as we readied ourselves for a late supper, Jon declared “with the exception of the computer, I’ve managed to restore us to the state we were in when we arrived on Friday.” Door handle, fixed. Rear screen, replaced. Grilled lemon chicken with cob corn and charred cauliflower, served. Late-night walk in the moonlight, enjoyed.

Next day found us doing our typical Sunday stuff, albeit with Jon using his iPhone to read The Times and create this blog post.

Unexpected setbacks are fairly common on the road. It’s not a question of whether you’ll have them but of how you’ll handle them.