Turning North

It’s hard to believe it’s the middle of April already. I’m pretty sure I’ll get audited by the IRS this year since it’s the first time in twenty some years I filed my taxes by the 15th of April with no extensions. Pretty radical! But when you have no money there isn’t much to do for taxes. Since I’ll turn 70 in September, I’ve been informed by the trustees that I must start taking minimum withdrawals from my 401k next year. So, I’d guess this is the beginning of the end. When the money runs out, so do I. That’s life in the good old USA!

I’m not, however, ready to call it quits. I have discovered the joys of frugal living. Really. If you haven’t tried it, you should. I’ve survived the winter on about $1,000 per month as I’ve been saving every penny in order to make one more trip around the world this fall. And to do that, I’ve camped in one of the cheapest places on earth for the winter, Quartzsite, AZ. But winter is over.

Yes, this past week showed temps in the 90s and the campground has emptied out fast. I took that photo the same day the temperature hit 93. Some of those people have left since then. And some of the trailers are empty for the summer.

I was okay with all that three weeks ago when friends sent me a photo of my campsite in Idaho.

Even as people were packing their tents and silently slipping away from Quartzsite, I was getting more reports from Indiana, Minnesota, and even Washington of more snow, floods, ice, cold, and generally inclement weather awaiting. But then, this week friends in Idaho started sending me photos of the cleanup they did around my campsite and telling me they were awaiting my return.

What great folks! Thank you so much! Now I can hardly wait to pull my fifth wheel in there and settle in for the summer at Sun Meadow. Here’s the travel plan.

Leave Quartzsite April 16 and go to Laughlin, NV for a night or two because I’ve never been there. Then head up to Las Vegas for a night or two, focused on resupplying at Costco and Camping World, getting everything checked out, and ready for the wilderness. The wilderness is the five days or so it will take me to travel the Great Basin and eastern Nevada to Idaho. Then it's 500 miles north through Idaho to Sun Meadow. The map says this is about 1200 miles and 24 hours. I should be able to make it in two weeks.

So, all that’s needed now is to get dressed and start packing up my campsite here in Quartzsite so I can head out on Tuesday. Maybe that sounds easy to you, but I keep getting waylaid. Like the fact that I finished editing and coding Municipal Blondes, the long-awaited sequel to For Blood or Money, and today it entered prerelease serialization to my patrons.

Wild Woods, the sequel to City Limits, is also now in prerelease serialization to patrons, all of whom will also receive the eBook version before it is released to the public.

And next Sunday, Devon Layne’s Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins Book 2: Double Time, the sequel to Double Take, will enter prerelease serialization for patrons.

All three books are slated for general release on June 23. But just to keep myself sharp, I joined Camp NaNoWriMo for April and committed to producing a chapter a day of Book 3: Double Date. So far, at 68,346 words for the month, I’m on track!

If I’m ever going to quit procrastinating and start packing and cleaning—dang dishes have to washed. Again!—I guess I’d better close this up and hope I’ll be in range of a cell tower when next Sunday comes so I can update you again.

Happy trails!