Here's the plan. Pick the coldest day of the year so far, pack up the camera gear and waddle off into the great unknown. Which I did.

Remember, Mitch, in this marvelous age of the digital, “Live and die by the battery!” Take lots of extra, fully charged, warm milliamps so you have plenty of juice to run these electronic devices.

This isn't the old days of manual equipment when film got moved by a hand crank and focus required an eye. But I digress.

Off I went. Lots of activity over the water as the cold air interacted with warmer (hard to fathom) sea water. There were swirling wisps everywhere. I chose the swirling wisps viewed from the southern end of Capitol Island. Nobody home at the Jim and Mary Bowden house, but I knocked on the door, just to be sure.

And there it was!  

The ringer powered by yet another battery — my cell phone. But I had just gotten the northern end of Squirrel Island in my sights hoping for yet another startling and magnificent revelation for everyone who has lived here the last 100 years. I took the call and dropped the phone!

A voice was chattering away from a place far below with perfect clarity. I had missed yet another credit card deadline and a robot was calling to suggest an automatic withdrawal from my checking account. My camera quit.

It didn't say, “I'm too cold. This is above my pay grade.” It just went to sleep. My hands stopped working. And the credit card company continued to offer options.

The photo I've shared this week happened just before the robot hung up.