As some of you may have guessed, I'm not too fond of planning, deadlines or established rules for traveling. And especially deadlines and rules that I make up out of whole cloth and force myself to follow.

But sometimes, because of my procrastination, one-track mind, apathy, and yes, even Laziness. I have to force myself into making a decision so that I can move on with my life.... And this is looking like one of those times.

If I decide to spend this coming winter traveling in the little Bronco truck camper instead of the Arctic Fox fifth wheel, it's going to require a lot of readjustments in my life, both mental and physical. So making that decision can't be done at the last minute, which is the  way I normally make decisions.

The simple fact that the Arctic Fox would have to be carefully winterized, and everything that can be damaged by -20° weather removed, means that I can't be living in the Arctic Fox after it's winterized, and I can't winterize it at the last minute.

This means it's going to take some time to get the little Bronco ready to pretend it's a full-timer's RV and for me to make the physical transition from the Arctic Fox to the little Bronco.

So right now, in front of everyone, I'm going to make my first big decision about my future full-timing life. And that momentous decision is.... I'm going to make my decision on whether or not to use the little Bronco for my winter travels on Labor Day, September the 6th........

Yes, I realize it's pretty weird that my first big travel decision was putting off making a travel decision. But sometimes, I have to sneak into the decision-making process without letting myself know I'm actually making a decision.

 But actually forcing myself to make a date certain is a big improvement in my decision-making. And the Labor Day holiday will give me a good chance to do some deep thinking, which is often mistaken for a nap, about what direction my future full-timing life should go.

                                                             Theboondork

Antique gas pump. I used to see these sitting all over out West, but folks decided they made good decorations, so now they're hard to find and pretty expensive.

Back in the day, If you're building a barn door, and you're nails were too long, you couldn't just ride your horse to Home Depot and choose from hundreds of kinds of nails of all shapes and sizes, you had to deal with what you had available. In this case that meant bending the nails over so they didn't stick out and injure the horse. And bending them over gave them a stronger hold on the wood. How they looked was at the bottom of your list of concerns.

Giant petrified tree stump at the Fluorescent Fossil Bed National Monument. In Fluorescent Colorado I visited on the way to my property.

Well, I am officially and physically back home now, so I'm writing this in the present tense, which makes it a whole lot less confusing for me than trying to write about things that happened days ago and keep it all straight in my mind.

So if anything in my last few blog posts looks strange or out of place, I can assure you that I wasn't strange or out of place; I was simply having troubles writing about places I was, instead of places I am, which made it sound like I wasn't anywhere. But now  that's straightened out, I can move on to a normal life again.

I have found that a two or three-night mini-vacation is almost not worth the effort. It takes just as much time and work packing up the little Bronco for an overnight stay as it does to stay a week. And packing and unpacking the little Bronco is really the most time-consuming, and least enjoyable, part of my mini-vacations.

So what that does is discourages me from taking, let's say, a weekend trip and encourages me to only take a trip if I can stay a week or so. Now in the past, I've had this same problem and I solved it by having duplicates of almost everything that I needed to travel with, so whatever RV I had was already loaded with food, clothes, and whatever else I needed to live on the road for a while, so packing up to take a trip was quick and easy.

This, of course, didn't work in the winter because I had to empty the camper of everything that would freeze, but in the winter, I didn't generally take short trips, anytime I went somewhere, it was for a couple of weeks or more. So, packing and unpacking wasn't that big a deal.

But nowadays, I'm trying to simplify my life and my possessions, so carrying duplicates of things doesn't make sense, so the only things that stay in the little Bronco are some clothes and eating utensils. So even though I much prefer having a camper ready to go all the time without much packing and even less planning. It looks like that's not going to be happening the remaining month and a half I have left here in Denver.
                                                    
                                                               Theboondork

A lot of the fossilized tree stumps at the Florescent Fossil Bed's National Monument are about 14 feet across

The pictures I took at the Florescent Fossil Bed's didn't have anything to show the relative size of the fossilized tree stumps, so I dug up a couple of old pictures off the Internet of folks posing with the tree stumps before it was a National Monument. So it's a little easier to tell how big these Redwood stumps actually were.

What looks like three separate petrified tree stumps is actually three new trees growing out of a giant tree stump which makes more sense looking at the picture below.

This old picture from the Internet makes it more obvious that a gigantic tree broke off, and three sprouts grew out of the old stump and made three large trees.

The fossil beds aren't far from where I used to live so I've been there several times before. There's other things to see and do their but I mainly stopped in to take pictures of the giant petrified tree stumps.

I saw lots of "volunteers" working around the fossil bed's,  and every one of them had a shovel in their hand. Probably not the kind of glamorous work they had envisioned.

Colorado mountain sunsets frequently start with a blast of color and then slowly fades into blackness lit only by a universe of stars.

I drove up to my property by early afternoon, found a semi-level spot to park, raised the roof on the little Bronco, and settled in for some boondocking at its finest.

There's something about the air at 9000 feet, which is about the altitude of my property. that makes it just perfect. It's dry and crisp and cool, which makes it just right for breathing.

Down at sea level, where the air feels oppressive, and the humidity saps your strength, there's plenty of oxygen, in fact so much so that I find I only have to take a breath three or four times a day.

Ten thousand feet and higher, it takes more effort to breathe, there's not much oxygen available, so I have to breathe a lot just to get the oxygen I need.

But 9000 feet is just perfect. I wish all the air in Colorado was like 9000 feet air. But if it was, even more people would be coming to Colorado just to breathe the perfect air.

I had a good time at my property, but since I didn't know I would end up there, I didn't bring along anything to do. Like, for instance, a few guns to shoot. I had one gun, of course, but it's full of somewhat expensive ammunition that was made for one purpose only, and I didn't want to waste it shooting at a tin can.

And of course, as always, I had no Internet or phone service, which removes a lot of my entertainment, so mostly I took a few pictures and relaxed. And there are few things as relaxing as sitting in the peace and quiet of your favorite place and breathing that perfect air.

                                                               Theboondork    

A small herd of 10 or 12 Antelope walked by the little Bronco just before sunset. They stopped and stared at me, as if to say, what are you doing here? This is our home..... and of course their right. This is their home, always has been, always will be. I'm just borrowing it for a brief moment in time.

I'm always happy to be at my property. There's something about being here that gives me a feeling of contentment and serenity. And to me that's the biggest advantage of full-timing in a home with wheels.

if I have wheels, why on earth would I stay someplace I'm not happy? And by boondocking, I have the freedom to always be someplace that makes me happy.

This is the Pike National Forest that borders my property on the north side.

And this is the Pike National Forest that borders my property on the east side, giving me plenty of room to roam along with the Deer, the Elk, the Bear, and the Mountain lion. Which just so happens to be some of my favorite neighbors.

There was a beautiful sunset this afternoon, at least it was beautiful to me. I have found that the beauty of a sunset is directly related to how happy you are where you're at.  I guess that explains why all sunsets are beautiful to me.

Enjoying the last rays of the setting sun before I get in the little Bronco and make myself comfortable for the night.

Driving that washboard road made for a tough day today and tired me out. So I'm hoping I can get those danged paper towels rolled back up  before I fall asleep.