I'm excited at the thought of saving money, even if we won't be able to start until the end of the year, so we can have options one day. I don't like being locked into any one place, even a good place. I like knowing I have the freedom of choice, even if those choices are limited. For example, I don't see us ever getting a regular house on concrete on the Atlantic coast. Fortunately, we're not miserable here either, so we can take our time while saving and thoroughly investigate the more feasible possibilities, gathering all the potential pros and cons. I would like the chance to escape the motorcycles and be out of a flight path someday.

I see a lot of pros to the possibility of moving to New Mexico. We would have Becky around, and I miss owning our own land where there are fewer restrictions. Barking would be a big concern, though, with freeloaders blasting boom stereos being a mild concern. Unlike when we moved to Maricopa, we have more resources available for scouting potential areas. We'd have to really investigate what's around any property we're interested in and find out what's owned versus what's rented. We definitely would not want to be next to rentals!

As far as how much barking I would be willing to put up with, that would depend on how loud and how frequent it was. I know Jesse was the worst, worse than Phoenix in some ways. It just went on and on, hour after hour. There was a lot of barking in Phoenix, but usually, when a barking fit erupted, it stopped in a few minutes. It wouldn't be long before another one broke out, but it wasn't nearly as continuous. I still don't understand why anyone would want to get a dog just to keep it outside. If it's not a specifically trained guard dog, then what's the point?

Anyway, melatonin definitely causes next-day fatigue. I started to suspect it when I went without it for a while and felt better. So yeah, it's a combination of a few different things that's been helping me have better energy. However, I was up a long time yesterday and eventually took it. Just 4.5 hours later, I woke up to pee and had trouble falling back asleep. I got up at 7:00 p.m. and laid there till nearly 8:00. Then I got up, took my meds, and messaged him. He crashed early, so he was already in bed. Then I napped for a couple of hours. While I do feel better, I'm still tired. Even so, I'm hoping to reach the New Hampshire border today!

I woke up after going back to bed at just the right time too, because we had a storm. I'll have mixed emotions if Tom says he slept through it. That's great for his sake but so not fair, lol.