Well Crap... What An Escape THIS is...

So... the whole Idea is... live in a rig... so I can park the sucker where EVER the weather is Motorcycle Weather... right?

Yup... north in the summer time... south in the winter... Keep it in the wind year round...

So... Arizona sounds purty damn fine for the winter... Don't it? I mean... got out of Montana... juuuuuuust 'fore the first big blow of the winter... and then only had to work a week at NASCAR in another generally futile effort to stay ahead of the machinations of the man to suck my meager wallet dry...

and then... Just ride...

Right?

Uh Huh... Buuuuut, ya'll diiiiiiiiiint tell me 'bout that weather fella and his Murphy like inclination to pee all over a fella's careful architecting of winter riding plans!

So... camped here on the Prescott National Forest just a part of a gallon or so below a place called Camp Verde...

Been here before. Not so shabby for a place where the Rent is ZERO...

The neighbors leave a lil' to be desired on occasion...

But again... with views like these... who can truly complain?

Who? Welllllll... how 'bout me?! Ya see... take a look at that last picture... that was taken... oh, about 27 hours ago. See that big dark cloud hangin' low? Well... that sucker opened up about 24 hours ago and hasn't truly let up since.

I just stepped outside to shut off the generator... since the solar power system doesn't produce well when it only receives the liquid sunshine variety... and damn near vanished in the Arizona hard pan... that ain't quite so hard anymore after a full night and a day of rain.

Yeah... this escapin' lifestyle ain't Always what the songwriters crack it up to be. ;)

Sometimes it's a whole lot of coffee sittin' in the cold with a lap blanket, trying to sort out the outline of a new western book I'm writing... cuz I'm too cheap to buy enough propane to keep the heater runnin' all the time.

Oh yeah, almost forgot... and then, just to keep your mind active... how about finding the remains of a partially detonated IED on your last walk out from  camp... just before the deluge started???

Yup the poorly executed soda can version of an Ammonium  Nitrate Bomb... talk about questionable neighbors...

Yeah I know... Quit my Bitchin'... Instead of being trapped for a couple days inside a worn out plastic box parked in the Arizona desert... I could be back standing in the aisle of an Ace Hardware dreamin' of sunny slopes and selling plumbing parts to overweight matrons with purple hair who want to make imaginative centerpieces out of 'em for their knitting club luncheon!

... and lookin' at a 15 degree ride to get home... ;)

Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian

Southern Migration

It's coming. I know it. Winter is pushing its way south and I retreat before it. Our Beet Harvest Job in Montana is done and I've moved as far as Denver.

With a week visiting my Grandbabies near done... the urge to be moving on is strong. Weather is coming later this week but I won't wait on it. Maybe I'll get out ahead of it... maybe have to push through it... But I'll go. The desert and the work I have waiting there this winter is calling.

Work. The world demands its pound of flesh and I am not immune to that so produce I must. My good fortune is, almost blindly, I stumbled into that sort of situation where I get to do, for a living, what is a joy in itself.

Now, I still have a lot of work to do to bring it up to where it needs to be. My writing is not yet fully sufficient or reliable. (income wise) It sits in that tantalizing place of being juuuuust outside those bright lights of prosperity. ;)

For me prosperity is not riches. It's waking up in the morning, owning my life. Having some groceries in the cupboard, a little jingle in my pocket, the lack of crushing debts and the prospect of more of the Work that feeds my soul to keep me going.

I use the word WORK not job. A Job is just shoveling horse poop... WORK is the Art that feeds the spirit. Whether that be painting, writing, architecting, mechanicing, cowboying ... for some, Waitressing does that.

Whatever WORK feeds your soul, you chase that. You hone that craft to the sharpest edge you can put on it.

This winter that honing will be done brushed up out on the Arizona desert. I've a couple of Large Projects planned. Two novels are to be written one to add to each series. They're outlined and just sit waiting my arrival in the sunny south. Camped out amongst the creosote bushes and Paloverde trees... I'll immerse myself in them.

Sunny days, pots of coffee, miles of knees in the wind to clear my thinking when I hit a literary tangle ;) ... and come the spring, a fresh new pair of fabrications of terminological inexactitude from the twisted mind of a cowboy biker to keep the momentum of my publishing empire rolling. 

Keeping it in the Wind
Brian