"Bill's Excellent Adventure!"

9/1/07 - Well, it's Saturday morning and I'll be packing up getting ready to head south toward Roswell, Truth or Consequences, White Sands and Carlsbad. This journey will take in most of the southeastern quadrant of NM and I'm looking forward to the new adventure. The landscape I understand will change considerably as this will be the low desert portion of the state.

I'm getting comfortable here, too comfortable, and I need to get on the road again. That old nemesis "procrastination" is setting in...just don't want to move a half a ton of stuff from the room to the car! Once I get going it will be fine and the anticipation of the trip will take care of that procrastination.

This week has been pretty laid back. I did go to a Ford dealership to buy a new 2007 F150 truck with a cap large enough to store everything and give me a place to sleep out of the weather if need be. Things started out okay with a 0 down 3.9% rate. Over the next couple of hours the rate jumped on me to 5.9 then to 8.9 for various reasons which didn't make sense to me. I wanted a payment around $320. The first one came in at $350, then it jumped to $375 and still no cap for the truck. Well, no cap rolled into the deal, no sale. I was told I would have to pay cash for the $2,000 cap. I don't have those kind of reserves and I walked. The salesman must have called me 10 times in the next couple of hours trying to rescue the deal. Said someone gave me bum info after he left for the docs office. As far as I was concerned, they violated my trust and were doing bait and switch routines on me. I'm nobody's patsy and the payment was already more than $100/mo over what I am currently paying. So...I'll keep looking for a truck, a used one, already outfitted the way I need it to be.

I mentioned in the last blog that I wanted to go see the "Bourne Ultimatum." As I have not yet finished the book, I didn't want to see the movie before I read how the story ended, so I'm put that off until next month.

I still want to get me a dining fly for my camping set up. I've been to several stores and haven't found one I like and that is compact enough to pack into the car. My experience has shown me that shelters are not provided at most campgrounds and the area I'm traveling to probably don't have much natural shade, so I may make one more stop to probably REI to see what they have before heading south.

This will be an interesting weekend to find a good camping site as it is a holiday weekend. I usually move during the week as most campgrounds are pretty empty and I have my choice of spots. A little trick I figured out over the months...move to a new location early in the week!

I haven't actually figured out my first leg of this trip yet. I'll do that after I get the car loaded and probably after I stop at REI...makes it more exciting this way. You know, just take it a day at a time.

Talked awhile with Mercedes last night. Good to hear from her and how she is doing. I confused her boyfriend with someone else for a few minutes before I got it straight! Good luck Mercedes on your work and you'll be on my weekly call list now.

Well, enough procrastination, better get to packing. It's only 7 AM!

By the way, I have no idea what my phone service will be like on this leg nor my WiFi access, so you all may not hear from me for a while. Check in to the blog from time to time and see if I've had any luck getting access.

See ya! Hope NC gets some rain soon as I am sure you do to!

"Bill's Excellent Adventure!" continues...