As I started discussing in the last post, in approximately one year, I plan to chuck it all and head into the figurative sunset: retire and bail on where I am living. Not that Northern Nevada is a bad place to live - au contraire, mon frere! - it's a great place if one is disposed to outdoor activities as I am. No, I am leaving because of too many ghosts. As I said, my preference is to go internationally with minimal belongings attached. That's the dream. The reality may differ due to something you may have heard of - a pandemic.

If things have not settled enough for me to jet off, my Plan B is to load a few things in my 2006 Volvo wagon and hit the road in the USA. I've done it a few times - camping on the side of a road, or in a campground - so I don't see why I can't continue the practice. The difference would be that I wouldn't have a home base - I'd just keep on moving. What things I don't take with me and I want to keep, I'll put into storage here. I will maintain an official residence here via a friend's physical address and a PO Box, too, for tax purposes (no state income tax on my pension).

I figure a schedule of two nights on the road, and one in a place with a shower and a bed. Rinse and repeat. The car has a lot of miles left on it, and sleeping in the back isn't a problem for one. Seeing as I'm a solo adventurer now and in the foreseeable future, I think it'll all work out fine. The freedom of letting the wind blow me wherever is almost daunting in its breadth. I mean, how many people actually have the freedom, and willingness to just...go? Anywhere, at any time?

​I will have that freedom. What I do with it remains to be seen.

The countdown has begun to Slang's Worldwide Walkabout. What is that, you may ask? (A generous assumption regarding readership here.) Well, my plan is to take off on a semi-permanent basis September of 2021 and...just take off. Go where the whim leads me, or the wind, or the tide, or the call of a siren song. I will no longer have an anchor, or even a tether attaching me to where I am currently, so why stay? My loin-fruit are both launched and will be either in college or in the working world at that point, and I will be retiring from my job.  There is nothing compelling enough for me to stay to counteract the weight of the ghosts that haunt me here. Ghosts of things that have died -- relationships, hopes, loves; ghosts of what was, and what will never be.

I will be shaking the dust of this town from my metaphorical boots. Metaphorical, because I don't own any, and certainly wouldn't be packing them along if I did -- too heavy and bulky. Only shoes going along with me are running shoes and flip flops.

The questions that remain are exactly when to take off, and where to go. Much of that second question is wrapped up in things I cannot control - mostly to do with the situation regarding Covid-19 and how the government at the time is handling it. I'm not sure it could do worse than it is now, but hey, set a bar low enough, and the tangerine nightmare in the White House will find a way to go lower. As things stand now, many countries won't even accept a US citizen to enter their country. My, how far we have fallen. I can only hope for a change in administration, the development and distribution of a viable vaccine, or both.

My current choices of a first landing point are either Panama (I did like it there), or New Zealand. I like the Panama option as an initial landing point because of its proximity to the rest of the Americas to the south for further hops, and some familiarity. New Zealand is enticing for its being New Zealand, and its proximity to Southeast Asia and Australia. I have time to consider, and who knows if either country will welcome me. Well, not me specifically -- since I am awesome -- but a person coming from a contaminated, quarantined, and (rightly so) ostracized country.

So that's the plan: a carry on bag and my passport: travel light and flexibly and, if necessary, fast. Anything else I own (a car, some furniture, the rest of my clothing and kitchen gadgets) I will either sell or put in storage. With the Internet the way it is now, and banking electronic, I can be gone as long as I want. I can pop back to comply with visa requirements and see my kids, though, every couple of months.

What to do if I can't escape this shithole? That's in the next episode.