Time ⏳ and Big Red 🛻

At times I waiver about my trip out to Michigan this summer and the necessary step before then – replacing Big Red. With work, it’s not the best year to take an extended vacation, though late July and August will be slow, and I will have my laptop and can work remotely as needed.

But I also know this is the best year to travel and visit Michigan as I don’t know if it will be the last I can travel. I keep seeing my parents get more frail, I see myself getting grayer and grayer every year. People can and do travel in their later years, but I don’t know if I’ll ever have the chance or get sucked into the homestead life in Westerlo and never really get a chance to get away. Indeed, many retirees travel the globe, but I want the off-grid cabin, not wasting my life visiting tourist traps.

It’s so much money and things to think about replacing Big Red and building the next rig. I make good money, that’s a given, I’ve been quite successful financially and in my career, still it seems like so much cost for a vehicle that will only last for a decade or so, but also I know this is likely my best chance to travel before it’s too late.

I was looking at Big Red today, and some ways regret not getting him welded and keeping him on the road. But he would not have been good to go to Michigan. A nice new truck will provide a reliable ride to Michigan, a truck cap that doesn’t leak, upgraded batteries and solar for camping, and quite possibly adding a cell booster for better service for remote work. I can put off the diesel heater for now, though I do want that for winter camping with the problems I have with my chilled through toes, even with wool socks, camping in an unheated truck cap in winter. Getting old kind of sucks.

Maybe I regret not having a family, or staying too long living in the city, instead focusing on a life based on escape rather reality. Too much focus on the potholers and nights in the wilderness, and not enough on buying a house, having a wife or children. But I never wanted those things, I wanted to spend more time in wilderness. And by replacing Big Red, I have a chance for at least a few more big adventures before it’s too late with hungry goats and hogs to feed.