2024

Looking ahead to the new year filled with adventure plans.

Here in Vegas, we are 60 and sunny mostly. We are spending the winter in our favorite city, playing some poker, exploring some wilderness and generally keeping up with old friends and making new ones. Exploring the desert and enjoying a winter without constant rain and cold.

Christmas was spent quietly with friends at their house, watching football and eating our fill of scrumptious food, laughing and enjoying a lovely fire in the evening.

New Year’s Eve was a raucous affair. E and I usually work or hide on the notorious holiday of drunken debauchery. This year we actually went out and joined in the madness and had a blast! We enjoyed a show at the South Point Casino with a couple hundred revelers, kissed as the hour changed the year and never sat down while dancing our legs off. This after spending the day in Red Rock Canyon doing an uphill hike of over 5 miles. According to my phone, we did over 10 miles of walking/exercise by the time we got to bed, lol. As a side note, my mustache has begun being a celebrity and is being requested for selfies from tourists, WHAT?

E and I with mustache groupies

Spazmatics Rockin the 80’s

Plans for the year include a visit to Quartzsite for the big tent show along with hanging out with the Escapees, a relatively quiet February and then the “Big Change“. If you haven’t heard, we both have summer work camping jobs starting in April and running for 6 months. We will be heading out to Custer State Park in South Dakota, https://gfp.sd.gov/parks/detail/custer-state-park/ (actually spending some time in my domicile state) to work through the fall. E will be cloistered away in some deep, dark, dank, hole troubleshooting your reservations and I will be driving you on your outdoor expeditions amongst the wildlife. Feel free to come by and take a jeep tour with me (remember to tip your driver well, Jonesy needs new toys). I don’t know if you can request a driver/guide but here is the link. https://www.custerresorts.com/activities/activities-experiences/buffalo-safari-jeep-tour

We will be in South Dakota until October and then headed to upstate New York for a visit with relatives, and then down to Florida for a little bit before returning to Las Vegas for the winter fix of sun and desert.

Speaking of desert sun and fun; Since we are living full time in One Time (yes, poker reference), we have discovered an issue with travel. Our home is our camper, so what do we do when one of us wants to go to the desert to prospect/agate hunt/rockhound or just generally go somewhere I would tow a camper and be away from the crowd? E is not interested in going to the Escapees prospecting meet up with me (7 days in the sun and sand looking for gold, with few people around, who could ask for more?) so we have come up with a solution that fits both our needs for stable home and my need to go out. I am outfitting Karl with a truck bed tent and all the amenities to be relatively comfortable in my solo camping efforts. This is not a bad thing as E gets very bored with boring rocks and landscape and no people to watch after a very short time and I can walk in the desert looking at all these things for days. The addition of solo camping to Karl’s repertoire will give me even more flexibility to explore further afield without spending a bunch of money or disrupting our home to tow to the middle of nowhere. This is definitely a win-win for our lifestyles. BTW, I have invented a new (maybe?) term to include all outdoor activities conducted by me…Desert-ratting is my go to term to include driving, hiking, rockhounding, prospecting, or any activity that could leave me dirty/sweaty/tired and generally with some rocks in my pockets or at least some photos. Solo just refers to my camp, if you want to go along, pack up and let’s go prospecting! I will detail the specifics about this set up once I get it tweaked to suit me.

In the meantime, here are some area photos for you.