OK! Guys, FINALLY figured it out - there was this little (I mean TINY) icon on the very top of my Mac, so I clicked on it and it opened up the Canon Image something that was no longer supported. (Which I found hilarious.). THEN, it was like, use this "ihub.canon.image" so I was like, "Why not??" not expecting it to work.
It had me register and connect my camera via their web/cloud service. And, low and behold - IT WORKED!!! The little green light was flickering away and all of a sudden, pics starting rolling in. The best part was it automatically connected to Google Photos, so I now have all of my photos in my Google Account.
The pictures in the ihub.canon.image are only available for 30 days, but now I'm downloading them to my computer, (at least I hope I am - it didn't give me an option as where to put them, so I'm not sure exactly where thye are going?) so I'll have them on my laptop AND in my Google drive. Hoping once they are downloaded, my Mac will be like "Cool, pictures." and open them in iPhoto or Image Capture.
What a saga! I hope that this post helps someone else in my shoes.
Still going to get the San Disk reader and see if it works...might still return the camera.
UPDATE: All photos were able to be downloaded from the ihub.image.canon website. Two zip drives that opened up to all of my pics! YAY! So now my pics are in Google, on my laptop, and will be with Canon for 30 days. I hope this information helps someone else!
