my definition of boondocking

 A picture is worth a thousand words, my pictures are worth two words...... I'm sorry.

The cold front wiped out all the pretty leaves In the neighborhood in just a couple of days. but there will be more when I get down south of Denver.

If all goes well, the next time you hear from me, I will be someplace else. I don't know where that place will be; it could be in the parking lot of the Bass Pro shop in Colorado Springs. Maybe the Walmart parking lot in Trinidad, Las Vegas, New Mexico, or maybe Sugarite Canyon State Park near Raton, New Mexico. But wherever it is, I will be heading South, which means warmer weather.

I've done everything I need to do. Fortunately, I did everything before the cold front came through, so now I have to put a few things away in the camper, and I'll be ready to go.

It's always hard for me to leave my family behind; they do so much for me. But this cold front that came through made it a little easier because it reminded me that there's no way I could live the way I'm living in Colorado in the winter, and I have to get South where it's warm, or my life is going to be very difficult.

Since I'm just starting on my winter travels, this seems like a good time to re-explain a question I get asked every once in a while, which is, how do I define boondocking? And the brief answer if you want to avoid reading the rest of this drivel is... Having no hookups.

Since I'm lazy, I try to make things as simple as possible for myself, including how I define boondocking. I understand that the term boondocks actually means being out in the middle of nowhere, but for my purposes, that's too confusing because one man's boondocks could be another man's home. So, how far away are the boondocks? 1 mile? 20 miles? And how far away from WHAT? A town, a house?

These and many other questions that are too difficult for someone as lazy as I am to figure out or even remember. And since I have the ultimate power over this blog, seeing as I'm not just any old boondork, I'm THE boondork. So I have decided that boondocking will mean whatever I want it to.

So, for the last eight years, I have decided that boondocking means "camping somewhere without hookups."

The location has nothing to do with it. I have boondocked in downtown Tombstone, Arizona because I had no hookups.

 It also has nothing to do with money since I pay $225 a year for a New Mexico Park pass, which allows me to boondock for free. Or when I stay at the Pima County Fairgrounds, I pay to stay there, but I'm in an area where there are no hookups, so as far as I'm concerned, I'm boondocking.

 It also has nothing to do with it being at an actual campsite because I boondock at my daughter's house and in Walmart parking lots and because I'm not hooked up at either of those places... Except at my daughter's home for the last five days when the cold front went through.  I'm boondocking.

So, as you can see, I've tried to make it as simple as possible for myself. Without thinking about how far from civilization I am or what it's costing me. The only thing that matters to me every day is whether I am hooked up to electricity and, or water. The main thing I care about is to be as free as possible to live my full-time life the way I want, and living off grid, without hookups gives me the freedom to come and go as I please.

 And with the problems many folks seem to be having, finding campgrounds in the right place at the right time looks daunting, not that it can't be done. But living like that for someone as lazy, terrible at making plans, whose daily agenda is to wake up, eat, take pictures, and go to bed.  Living not on a schedule but a whim, it appears that I made the right lifestyle choice for myself.

Theboondork

it looks like there won't be any more patio parties until next spring.

For those of you who live in warm places and are unfamiliar with this infernal device, it is designed not only to injure but to kill people, and does so every year.

Its very name encompasses two things that I detest... Snow and shovels I've owned several of these things because, living in the Rocky Mountains, you wear them out every few years.

But there's no chance of that ever happening again because this is as close as I will ever get to one.... And I was using a telephoto lens.

This "snow shovel" is responsible for more bad backs, pulled muscles, and complaining husbands, than any other device known to man. But it's not satisfied with just injuring people, oh no! Put a 70-year-old man in his driveway with a foot of snow on the ground, and in 10 minutes, he's flopping around in the driveway like a fish on a pier with all kinds of heart problems. And the fact that he watches TV for 12 hours a day with a beer in his hand has absolutely nothing to do with the devastation this device causes.

So that's a warning to all of you Florida folks that didn't recognize this device and the misery it can cause, so do yourself a favor and stay away from anything that looks remotely like this, and never go to a part of the country where something like this is being sold.... Heed my warnings, or you will be sorry.

 Another one of the things that I left Colorado to get away from was snow-packed, icy sidewalks, and yet; all those footprint you see are mine.

It's funny when young people slip on the sidewalk, but for old geezers it can be a life-changing situation, and unfortunately Colorado puts you in that situation for five or six months of the year.

The snow-melt dripping off the Lances roof picked  my electric cord to live on. I'm kinda scared to touch any of it. Maybe I'll have to stay here until it melts next spring.