Thanksgiving – and Retirement!

Today was Thanksgiving in the US, but I was giving thanks as well.  Today was also my last day of ‘work’.  As of tomorrow, I will be officially retired from working for the federal government!  And I am giving thanks that I am down in the warm sun of the desert and not dealing with some of the –39 temps and snow around home.  It has been a cool spell down here as well, but I will try to not complain as long as there is no snow to shovel. 

And as of today, I guess I could almost call myself a ‘full-timer’, tho I’m not sure I can use the title because I still have the house up north.  I just don’t know yet how often it will get visited by me!  These are pics of my house a year or so ago, but it probably looks pretty similar there right now.  Beautiful, but chilly!

Since my last post, Hailey and I have moved on down the road, and have now been in the Mojave National Preserve for several days.

I’m losing track of how many days we have been here, so that is a good thing!  The only question now is whether the supplies will last until the Grey Cup game on Sunday, or whether I will have to move along and replenish?  It is a fairly isolated area with no fuel or services for many miles, so if supplies run low it would be easier to move camp than to drive many miles to a store and return again.  Next stop is likely to be Lake Havasu?

It is very quiet here with lots of room and only a few distant neighbors in the area. 

Great desert hiking is available all around, including up the Kelso dunes.  Hailey has been given the run of the camp, and is really enjoying the freedom.  Here she found a spot in the hitch to hide out! (Click any photo for a larger view)

I went for a hike the other day and found a vacant desert tortoise shell.  I have only ever seen a live one once, near Quartzsite, and I don’t think they are active this time of year, but the former occupant of this shell had not been using it for quite some time.

There are also some tortoise-shaped burrows in the same area, but I don’t know what type of animal inhabits them?

This sign likely pre-dates the National Preserve, which I think has been here for only 10 or so years now?

After having a few ‘issues’ with my satellite internet gear when I was on Vancouver Island in October, it has been working well ever since.  I finally got around to hooking up my voip phone correctly – the same one and same number as I use(d) at home.  There is a bit of a delay due to the satellite connection, but it was working well, so I took advantage of the virtually free calling and made a few calls to celebrate my last day of work.

(Hailey playing ‘hide and seek’!)

Even though I have been fortunate to have spent a lot of time down south in the last few years, there has always been a date when I had to be back to work.  Now it feels weird and very nice not to have any deadlines at all.  Certainly, I will head back north in the spring, but until then I check the map and online sources daily, looking for interesting places to make my next stop.