A brand-new year to enjoy

Clicking the pics will bring much happiness to the new year.

The town of Quartzsite, looking west towards California, taken from my boondocking spot at Scaddan Wash.

If you zoom in, and your eyes are sharp enough, you might be able to see how much I'm paying for diesel fuel. A clue... Diesel fuel prices are green.

But maybe not, the Internet usually changes my sharp pictures into mush.

The celebration of my new year started and ended in the same way it does every year; I was asleep by 10 o'clock on New Year's Eve night, and I crawled out of bed eight hours later into a brand-new year. Admittedly not very exciting, but pleasant nonetheless.

I'm a sound sleeper, so I was unmolested by the noise of fireworks, if there were any. By raucous partying, my neighbors are too far away for that to be a problem. Or the sound of gunfire, firing guns into the air, or at each other, on New Year's was a common celebratory activity in Miami, Florida.

But last night I faced none of those things. I slept very peacefully, wrapped in my own Lance cocoon, cut off from the rest of the world in the vast expanse of the Arizona desert.

And what else could I do on a holiday based upon the conspicuous consumption of mass quantities of alcohol? Having consumed enough alcohol while I was in the Air Force to last me the rest of my life, I'm not much of a drinker anymore, nor do I wish to be.

So my New Year's celebration consisted of rooting through my earthly possessions this morning to find my 2023 calendar I bought before I left Denver, and hanging it on the wall of the Lance with all of the pomp and circumstance I could muster.... New year, same life.

But I'm okay with my life. My life is perfectly normal and as far away as possible from what you might call an exciting, interesting, adventurous, or unending vacation type of lifestyle. Instead, my life is simply an ordinary guy, living an ordinary life in a home with wheels, and for the sake of brevity, that lifestyle is called "full-timing."

So here I go again, turning the page and heading into a new year of searching for comfortable places to live where it's not too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter, most of the time succeeding, but not always. But I do keep in mind that the weather, just like life, is unpredictable. But if you're truly happy doing what you're doing, and have a sense of joy and anticipation just waking up in the morning, it makes it a lot easier to deal with the uncertainties of both life, and the weather.

Theboondork

A small part of Scaddan Wash. As you can see there's not many folks here yet, but in another couple of weeks what you're looking at now will be so crowded that I wouldn't want to be here, which of course, is why I won't be.... The endless barking of the dogs, and roar of the $300 harbor freight generators is more than I can bear

Quartzite sunset

The clouds were too thick to make a spectacular sunset... But sometimes life is not about spectacular, sometimes just being there is good enough.

This is a very common sight in Quartzsite. A group of RVs scrunched up together out in the desert, often in a wagon train type circle, enjoying each other's company.

They may be a club, or they may be folks that share the same hobby. But whatever it is they're drawn to the solitude of the desert to sit around nightly campfires telling lies and war stories.

But don't think that just because they're in a group you wouldn't be welcomed in their midst, it's the exact opposite. If you're anywhere near them they will drag you over to their campfire, put a beer in your hand, and talk your ear off. And before you know it you'll be trying to buy an ATV, and a trailer to carry it.