Haven't visited y'all in a while, but I missed photos like those found in this thread... and Road, your night sky photos are EXCELLENT!!! That is some good work, while the other guys are no slouches either, lol.
Sean Slavin, you may recall my shots of Los Coronados... dunno if I ever posted my Salton Expedition pics at this site or the other, OAUSA.NET. In Salton Expedition II, I went back and sailed the length of the lake aboard a 12' Minifish, since my Laser was long gone.
Quite the adventure, with winds gusting over 20 knots at the outset of my voyage. I wanted to complete that voyage before bailing outta the Socialist Republik of KaliMexifornia, and I did, so no worries.
I don't miss that overcrowded seaside ghetto known as Coronado, the town of my birth... life in Arizona offers so much more personal freedom, and I value that freedom very highly.
Sean Slavin, I read in one of your earlier posts that you went through a rough patch... lemme tell ya how my life went after I left California. I bought a home in the tall pines of Show Low for $53K and fixed it up really nice... lived "The Life of Riley" for two years there, having some great adventures.
Dirt biking on Rim Road 300, sailing the Fish on Show Low Lake, meeting cool people and generally enjoying small town life. Never found steady year-round work though, despite applying everywhere with my Arizona CDL-A. The fake felony charge out of CA had a lot to do with that, I reckon.
So I flipped my beautiful forest home, made money on the deal and went roaring off to the PNW, or Pacific Northwest for those unfamiliar with the term. Strong economy there, plenty of work to be found, received multiple job offers but I never found a suitable fixer home on the coast within my price range.
Glamping in a forest of 300' Sitka Spruce trees in Bruceport on Willapa Bay was AWESOME, I spent about six weeks there before taking a cheap rental flat in South Bend for three months as I continued my search for a fixer home. Rains set in and I grew tired of the climate, so guess what?
I loaded all my stuff aboard yet another rental truck and headed BACK to Arizona, determined to find another fixer in an area which offered more work opportunities. Loaded & unloaded FOUR rental trucks during this whole process, juggling two cats and dealing with the 8' pool table, lol.
Stopped in Kingman for eight days (unloading the truck and storing my stuff again) and checked out fixer homes, but wasn't impressed... too many tweekin' crackerheads, and the place was too close to Vegas & L.A., so I decided to look at listings elsewhere in Arizona while sitting in my motel room.
Found this former tweeker palace in Benson, a real train wreck of a fixer, but high on a hill with a million-dollar view of the Dragoon Mountains and Cochise Stronghold (West Side). A 24' x 60' double-wide on roughly 1/4 acre, on a terraced hill so the lot feels much larger and I have the killer views.
Place only cost $36K, lol, but I've dumped another $10K or so and heaps of elbow grease into it, so it's worth twice as much already. I have an actual wet bar in my home, a huge Pool Room for my table on the north end (with excellent views), and all my stuff from Show Low, including the big screen TVs.
But AGAIN, I ran low on money and switched my focus to finding gainful employment, but the fake felony still held me back, which was frustrating. I actually had folks who WANTED to hire me to haul chemicals to the nearby mines, but couldn't because I can't obtain a 'fingerprint clearance card.'
Remember, I hail from a military family with a long & honorable record of service to this country: CDRs, USN Submarine Service, an Air Force Colonel in the Pentagon, multiple Army personnel, et al, all lifers while I merely served a hitch in the USA INF, go figure.
And I had NO CRIMINAL RECORD for 50 years on this planet before dealing with the corrupt scumbags in Coronado & Dago... yet AGAIN, their phony charges were interfering with my life. I resigned myself to flipping this second home and trying my luck elsewhere. I even listed it and had an offer, but...
At the 11th hour, a job offer came through with the city... local gubmint, how ironic, lol. I had been using free library Wi-Fi to apply at a hundred different places, I think this job listing was on that Indeed site, but no matter, it was an offer.
So I went to the interview and was totally up front about the fake charges... no problem, they didn't care one bit, since they already knew about the rampant corruption in California, lol. A few short hours after my interview, I received the call saying I had the job. Perseverance paid off, lol.
Now, I've made twice as much with certain trucking outfits, but with this job it's all about the BENEFITS: heaps of paid holidays, paid sick days (which I will surely use once I've earned 'em, might as well call 'em "paid dirt biking days" or "paid climbing days"), two weeks of paid vacay per year, etc.
So, after three-plus years filled with adventure but also uncertainty, I find myself in Cochise County, AZ, I own my home free & clear along with all my other possessions, I have a sweet job wrenching on golf carts & mowers & whatnot, and a kick@$$ retirement program is only eight short years away.
I can rip out to the coast to go sailing on paid vacay, or up to the White Mountains if I feel so inclined... Arizona has been good to me, so I have good memories in multiple locations. I DID bash my knee while going insanely fast on a dirt bike on Rim Road 300 while half-lit, but that's another story, lol.
I'm about to purchase a big ol' thumper (also street legal, what we used to call an "enduro" but folks now call a "dual sport bike") to ride out to the Stronghold so I can climb some long moderate routes with heller views clear past Tombstone & Sierra Vista into Old Mexico.
Life is good, the economy is strong but that doesn't matter so much on this gubmint job... it's kind of ironic that I should wind up driving golf carts instead of 40-ton big rigs, given my trucking experience, but the setting is tranquil, the scenery magnificent, my coworkers and bosses super cool, etc.
I still have my completed book on file, during this whole process it was rejected several times because it's not PC enough, and I'm not willing to modify my work to suit some libtard scumbag who kowtows to globalist trash, lol. So I've been shotgunning chapters across the Interwebs to live forever, aye?
Forgive the cheesy two-line format of this message, I couldn't be bothered to break so many details into normal paragraphs... but after reading that one post about your life being derailed, I wanted to share my journey with you, lol. Just to put things into perspective, so to speak.
Cheers, hand!!! If I can successfully pull myself up out of that mess created by corrupt goombah tards in California, I know YOU can do it, lol. It's only a matter of time, 10-4? Hopefully you are already back on track, I recall you worked as a surf photog for awhile... my friends owned a shop for decades.
I'll probably visit 'em soon enough, take 'em sailing aboard a rental boat, 27' to 30' LOA, that's large enough to have a good time and be comfortable with a small group of friends aboard. Maybe patrol the beach in Coronado for old times' sake... probably can't do the islands the way I did before, not in this era.
Alright, enough catching up for now, I'll post a few pics of my new pad (new to me, I mean), just so y'all can see how I'm living after that long ordeal, lol. Not the relocations, the ordeal of being falsely charged three times in Dago, pfffffffft. A ten-year saga, but they can all kiss my @$$ now, AYE??? LOL.
As soon as I post a few pics, I'm gonna go watch some entertainment on my 65" curved screen, I have a sweet home theater set up with soundbar & subwoofer, and an $1100 leather reclining sofa opposite the TV, lol. It doesn't suck, and neither does the slightly smaller flatscreen in the Pool Room.
ALRIGHT, HERE WE GO WITH SOME PICS:
And that's just a random sampling from thousands of photos, lol... some probably aren't quite as clear as yours, but that's okay, they still get the point across, yeah? I keep the 8' pool table covered with a blanket & carpet remnant when it's not in use, otherwise the house tigers (and one house panther) will tear up my expensive felt, lol. Hey, that table with all accessories cost four grand, twice as much as my '02 Camry, because a man has to have his priorities straight. Ain't a cr@ppy bar table in town that can touch it, and I don't need a fancy car to impress wimmin, they can love me for my sweet disposition, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Damn, sometimes I slay myself... okay, that'll do for now, got some killer Tombstone shots for y'all, provided I don't get banned first, lol. I'm off to watch some action on the 65" curved screen... Super Bowl manana, WAHOO!!! Ya know how much of a truck driver I still am? I'll keep a gallon p!$$ jug by the sofa as I pound beers, that way I won't miss any ridiculously-expensive halftime commercials, lol. CHEERS!!!