I had hoped to finish updating yesterday, but again I got too tired.

Still haven’t gotten the incense I know I should’ve gotten by now. I knew they’d do this to me, too. It’s like they want to lose me as a customer. Well, lose me they have. I’ll either get incense somewhere else or I just won’t get any at all.

The mail has already been forwarded to us. I was a little surprised there was no mail from Mary. I told her before we left that she could start using the Oregon address.

So far there’s been no vehicle breakdowns since we arrived here. We talked about going to the California coast eventually, but I don’t know. If we do, I sure as hell won’t want to stay in a motel!

This is the second day I had just one thing to eat. I’m trying to have just one meal or snack a day to save money. Two nights ago when we were in the motel, we got personal pan pizzas at a nearby old-fashioned pizza joint. They were good. Tomorrow we’re going to do KFC for me and some other fast food place for him. They have some of the same stores here, as I told Mom and family in the letter I mailed out to them today. I’m still working on a letter for Mary.

We did our laundry at the motel. There’s a Laundromat in town on a main drag where we go for our mail that we’ll probably use. I doubt it’ll be crowded with rowdy assholes.

Anyway, it’s now time to describe our beautiful, peaceful, dogless, musicless, voiceless land. Well, this place makes Maricopa seem like it was a big bustling city! It is absolutely dead quiet. All we’ve heard is a couple of jets flying around and faint traces of large trucks going down a nearby highway that cuts through the mountain. Better yet, I think it’s at the base of the mountain. This area is either flat farmland, though not like the farms in Maricopa, thank God, or a series of mountains and valleys. We are literally the only ones on this lane (lot 13, block 80, unit 4) and literally the only ones on this particular mountaintop. Well, we’re really damn close to the mountaintop anyway, which allows for some wind to blow through, but nothing fierce like we had in Maricopa. Unlike the constant, intense winds we had down there, we have a nice breeze here. The sound of the wind whistling through the treetops is soothing.

Hasn’t rained yet, and I dread the day it does for fear of the RV leaking like crazy. Tom’s going to give the roof another coating of this rubber sealant he has.

The land is mostly of ponderosa pines and junipers, a type of evergreen. There are lots of aspens around here, but not on the land. In the midst of what is on the land, there are these tall grassy things with scattered pinecones on the ground as well. There is evidence of life here as people once camped here before it was zoned residential. The trash is minimal compared to Maricopa, and it’s very hard to see what little there is because of the grassy, hilly, treed terrain. Speaking of which, because of the terrain and climate, you really don’t need to be out this far to live in peace. They don’t always build houses on top of one another here as they do in most of Arizona. They don’t all look the same, either. Most of these houses are big and vary in shape and size, as opposed to all the square little box houses set in tight rows in Arizona. You can really breathe here.

There are lots of lovely wildflowers here. Little daisies, plus other small flowers of yellow, purple and orange.

There are lots of beautiful, colorful butterflies around here. I even picked one up by its wing for a few seconds. We don’t care for the mosquitoes, but at least we no longer have to peek under the stairs for rattlesnakes or worry about scorpions or giant spiders. I haven’t seen any spiders yet, but I know they’re here. I see enough of their webs in the trees.

You really need to be as virtually fearless as Tom and I are to live here. It’s way remote. Yes, the thought of being so far out if we had a medical emergency is a bit unnerving, but it’s worth it. I think a lot of people would be scared to live way out here in the woods, your classic slasher movie setting! We tease each other about Jason jumping out from behind a tree in his hockey mask. Or was that Michael Myers?

Anyway, it’s gorgeous. I’ll miss the cactuses and the palms, but the woods are so peaceful and beautiful. The mountains are lovely as well. The air is clean, crisp and cool. I don’t look forward to the bitter cold and the snow, though.

The woods have both open and dense spots, but with our nearest neighbor a mile away, it doesn’t need such density. Most people don’t want to go where there’s no power. I realized that if it was too dense we couldn’t get in so easily, let alone haul in materials for the house and have room to build in. The more brush and trees we have to clear, the harder it’ll be. When the Brady Bunch joins us, we can always fill in any gaps with whatever. Still, some of it is so dense that a house could be barely 200’ away and you wouldn’t know it.

I can hang my wind chimes on the trees here easily. Couldn’t do that on the few tall Palo Verde’s and mesquites we had in Maricopa.

I feel very comfortable here. I grew up in the woods so I’m used to it. It’s similar to the woods in Massachusetts, just not so humid. The temperature’s been in the high 70s to low 80s. It’s gorgeous during the daytime, but chilly late nights and early mornings. I was surprised to see that they have dust devils in the more open spots.

Instead of having hundreds of smelly cows like that dairy farm had on the way to Casa Grande, there’s a series of green pastures with scattered horses and cows mixed in grazing. They don’t stink at all.

The mountains are similar to Arizona, although they’re greener and scattered with trees, rather than brown and rocky. There are even patches of sage that look like they could be in Arizona. It looks more like New England, though New England’s more hilly than mountainous.

The land and properties are way cleaner and neater than in Maricopa where everyone was such slobs. I know a big factor in that is that most of the people here are white. I’ve been out every day since we got here and have only seen a few blacks and Mexicans. Now that’s something I can get used to! I was so fed up with their shit.

Our land is hillier than we realized which we like. It’s not too hilly to build on, but hilly enough to provide even more privacy.

I love how there are no biting ants while there are lots of squirrels and chipmunks. I’ve already begun feeding them. I got so close to one of the chipmunks that I could see its whiskers. We’ve even seen lizards here.

The view at the end of the street is spectacular. It drops down into a valley and you can see another mountain straight across. Actually, all around most of our land, there are gaps where it drops off and you can see distant mountains. I can’t wait to take pictures, but who knows how long it’ll be before I can do that or get online or print? I could probably print tomorrow when we fire up the generator, but setting up the satellite is another issue.

The rats run around the RV at times, but we moved them to the back of the truck so I could get a little more peace in the RV. We’re going to put them in the screen room we plan to get tomorrow during the daytime and then toss them in the back of the truck at night. They were staging little fights to get attention and getting on my nerves.

I was shocked when Tom said that this area looks a lot like northern Arizona, but I’m still glad we left that state. We wanted a state where you could gamble from home and without so much of the reverse discrimination and insane laws mixed in.

There are some small towns between here and Klamath Falls (I don’t think this place has a name) like Olene, Dairy and Bonanza. We’re about an hour and 15 minutes from the California border.

They don’t let you pump your own gas in this state for some reason, but so far we both like Oregon better. I just hope we don’t get forced out by the snow, as we are in a snow zone being so high up, and into town in an RV park. We came here to get away from people, so it’d suck if circumstances forced us back with them. On the other hand, dogs and people aren’t going to be outside stirring up a ruckus in the wintertime in this place.

Food prices are similar to Arizona’s, but the cost of living is way cheaper. It used to be cheaper in Arizona too, till it became more in demand.

As I said before, we were worried this wasn’t our land, but Michael gave us the number of a nice couple who came out this morning on ATVs with a cute little dog, and they say we are on our land. Together we stepped off the perimeters, but we still intend to get a surveyor out here. It’ll be costly at around $300, but this way we know for sure we’re not on the wrong land. The reason it’s so expensive is that if the surveyors tell us we’re on the right land when we’re not, they have to pay for us to move.

I really hope these people know what they’re talking about because I do not want to move. Makes me feel like I’m in jail again with the threat of having to move when I like it just fine where I am. The land we thought was ours is much too dense, and while it’s great for privacy, we have enough privacy as it is and we need room to haul things in and to build in, as I said before. It also has huge piles of brush. Dead trees that I guess the county gathered up to lower the danger of forest fires, which would be excellent firewood for us.

I am going to be so pissed if we pay the surveyor money to find we’re on the wrong land and that Michael’s people can’t tell us where it is for sure. If this is the case, we’re not paying for his mistake. Our days of paying for other people’s mistakes are over. Instead, we’ll deduct the surveyor fee from our land payments if we can’t get him to reimburse us. If it is our land, then we’re responsible for the fee.

We found out from this couple (the woman was from Phoenix) that the person who bought the land next to us traded it in for another piece next to someone they knew. As they said, yes we could end up with neighbors building around us, but they don’t think we will. It wouldn’t surprise me if we did only because of our history. We asked about other available parcels just out of curiosity and weren’t impressed with what was available. There were pieces further out (the drive to town is long enough) or that were too rocky.

We just have to be careful not to get lost as Tom already did when exploring the woods. You really can’t see very far in most spots. When you’re not peeking through openings across valleys and onto other mountains, you can’t see much at all.

I asked the woman about dangerous wildlife and she said she heard one person say they saw a bear in the 9 years she’s been here, and she’s seen a mountain lion once. No need to worry, though, since they’re so rare and are afraid of people.

She also said that the winters vary and that she has seen up to 5’ of snow here. Yuck!

Another thing I haven’t mentioned yet is the abandoned trailer on the property diagonally from ours. It can only be seen from a few places on our land, but it’s there, nonetheless. I wish we could get it over here as we could use all the room we can get. Living in less than 200 square feet is no fun! We’re making it more and comfier little by little, though. Tom’s snoring hasn’t been such a big deal, but his movements can be since they shake the whole RV like they did with Dennis’ trailer. I never thought I’d say this, but I miss his old piece of shit! It was bigger and nicer than this thing. At least his toilet, sink and shower/tub were all separate. Here, the bath is no bigger than a phone booth. It’s terrible! I don’t see how a large person can get by in it. I know I barely can. The toilet, sink and shower are all one. You have to close the toilet’s cover and sit on that just to take a shower, but at least there’s a foothold there to make shaving easier, unlike in the Motel 6 we recently stayed at. Even so, we decided to keep this thing and use it for storage once we’re out of it because we’d have to license it in this state in order to sell it and it just wouldn’t be worth it. Besides, we really could use it for stuff and make the place look a little more populated than it really is. No one’s driven down this road since we’ve been here, but still, it adds security that never hurts.

I never did describe the RV. It’s pretty simple. There’s the cab with the overhead, then the bath, closet and kitchen are behind the driver’s seat. Behind the passenger’s seat is a bench and table we turned into a bed. I got a twin air mattress and that makes it much comfier. There’s a bed along the back of the RV as well which is where Tom’s sleeping. The refrigerator and back door are wedged between the two beds and there’s a scattering of cabinets. We can’t wait to put up the illegal shower we plan to set up inside a shed that inspectors won’t know about, and the garage/room we decided on in Arizona for $1600. We’d prefer compost toilets over a septic system, but we may not get a choice. For $50 a month, the county will provide us with a porta-potty, so we learned today from the couple (Tom’s going to talk to the county next Monday) and they’ll even empty it, too. That’d be nice to have on top of the RV’s shithole.

When we first arrived here, we backed the truck off the trailer and turned the trailer into a U-Haul. The storage place was closed so we made two trips there the next day and then another the day after that.

We went to Dairy Queen a few times. I always loved their burgers and fries, but here they suck.

I got a Barbie-like ballerina doll and decided that that’d be it in the doll department for quite some time to come.

Tom’s hoping for a job at the Home Depot to get discounts on building supplies, but I don’t vibe it.

For just a buck, since I haven’t been able to bounce yet, I got a colorful jump rope with shiny handles, but haven’t even been able to use that yet. I’ve either been too busy or too tired. Tomorrow I should be able to bounce in the screen room, though. It should be 10 x 13, the size of my Maricopa office.