a little background catching-up ...

    my original intent with re-starting my Blog, was to gradually slip in details from the past couple years, adding just enough each post to build up 'suspense' ... (that's the way us Pulitzer type writers do it, ya know) ...

   however, things tend to take on their own sense of priority as time goes by ... supposedly, Beatle John Lennon said, " Life is what happened, while you were making other plans " ... 
   
   sure does seem that way ... 

   so, while Life runs it's course according to it's own whims, I will pick up the Blog pace a bit, and get to the interesting stuff a little quicker ...

                 **************************

   after a lifetime of longhaul trucking & more orthopedic surgeries than anyone should ever endure (motorcycle enthusiast, ya see) I was beat up enough to just say "screw this, I'm going camping !" ...

camping

   I bought a new Ford van, an E-250 Super Duty Extended cargo model van, (and, I LOVE MY BIG FORD VAN !), and ordered a new Casita 17' travel trailer from the manufacturer ... after a 3-month wait, I drove to their Texas factory to take possession of my new 'home' ...

   while driving interstate for a living, my home was burglarized a couple times ... just minor losses, but it got me to wondering WHY I was paying a mortgage just to keep all my belongings in one place, to make it easier for burglars ... I was only home a day or two per week at the most, anyway ...

   so, I put all my stuff into a storage building, and lived in my trucks ... after divorces, I didn't really have anything, just had my job ...
 
   living 24/7 in a semi-truck, it was easy to rack up a crazy amount of miles ... while most drivers' top concern is just 'getting back home' to the family, mine was just to get the load delivered, and get under the next one ... I doubt very much if the drivers of today could even approach the amount of miles I ran, (3.5 million+ miles over 31 years) simply because of law enforcement ... the way the Driver's Logs are set up these days, it's virtually impossible to get away with that kind of mileage ...
   
   I worked hard & long, and being pretty well beat-up physically, I was more than ready to go off into the woods, mountains, and desert, and live like a heathen ! ... above all else, it well prepared me to survive, and thrive, in a tiny travel trailer ... it was only a 17' trailer, and intended for only 3-season usage, but I did just fine in it - it's positively LUXURIOUS compared to a truck sleeper !

   couldn't have done it without my sweetie, though !

Sybil, my sweetie, 11 weeks old

Sybil's 6th birthday, June 2015 - yup, she GREW !

   OK, so there's a little background for the new reader, tomorrow, we'll get down to the brass tacks ...