Hello friends,

Happy Sunday night to you all from hot and dry Tucson! I hope are are doing fine and enjoying your weekend. I had a busy week working and writing at night. If I haven't mentioned it yet, this is the hottest part of the year here in Arizona, and the only thing we're grateful for here in the 'Old Pueblo' a.k.a.Tucson, is that we don't live in some insanely hot place like Phoenix or Yuma!

Still it reached 107 on Wednesday and it just happened to be the day I agreed to do a major clean up in mid-town. My cousin Mike and I worked all day trimming shrubs and mowing down grass and weeds at a duplex. We drank water like we had holes in our feet, along with frozen Eegee's drinks ( a local favorite) and any kind of liquids we could swallow. We could work in extreem temps and have for years, but 107 is pretty hot, even for a couple of 50 some yearold lizards like us!

The thing with heat exposure or heat stroke, is that it hits you the hardest when you get home. I was so exposed and dehydrated the rest of the day I couldn't stop consuming liquids all night long. My head pounded and I woke up at night with legs cramps. Needless to say I didn't get any writing in that evevning and still felt like crap the next day. It is part of the world of working outside in the desert states, and I deal with it every year.

Outside of that, I continue to pound the keys on my laptop and have been in a writing zone with my book. I did take a break today for a while and headed my with my son Jonathan, to the newest movie theater in town and enjoy the big hit of the year; Wonder Woman!

It was an amazing flick and even though I'm not a big fan of the super hero genre, I am a big fan of the leading lady, Gal Gadot, from the Fast and Furiuos movies. As far as I was concerned she was made for the part and played it to a tee. I'll probably see it another ten or eleven more times in the next few years.

Then Johnny and I returned home and fired up the stove top to make some homeade tortillas my departed mother taught me how to make before she passed away three years ago. They don't match up to hers of course, but I'm getting closer as the time passes. We ate them with some pork carnitas and fresh beans to complete the evening, along with my sister and nephew. It was the last big meal for me since I will officially begin my diet tomorrow in an attempt to shed twenty pounds. I"ll keep you posted on that project!

So friends once again I humbly thank you for checking in this week and for continuing to support my dream of ending this journey with my book. Have a great week and stay safe. 

Juanjohn

Hello Friends,

I hope you are well and enjoying your weekend. I'm doing fine as well and wanted to check in with you this Saturday evevning. I'm sitting here with my baby Kalani, writing you while we endure the worst part of the hot Arizona heat.

The high today was 104 and the rest of the week calls for triple digits until God knows when! It is part of living in the desert southwest and June-Semptember are the hottest. To make matters more unbearable for my sister and I, who I'm staying with, is that the A.C. unit has been down for the last week or so. After fighting with the Insurance company and the contractors for days, it will finally be repaired sometime tomorrow. I guess my journey prepared me for some extreem conditions this past year, but I did'nt expect them here once I got home. It has made my book writing endevor difficult, coping with the heat inside the house. The fans don't help, they just circulate the already hot dry air. I can't wait for it to get fixed so I can concentrate on the novel and not the sweat running down my face and neck!

Oh well, things happen, it's part of life. I do have some good news, my blood work has come back with negative results and a clean bill of health for me, except for a pre-diabetic condition the doctor said I needed to address. She recommends I lose 25 lbs. and see a nutritionist to help me eat better and shed the extra few pounds she insist I carry. I don't see it to tell you the truth, but based on my height, 5'11", I should weight 178, not 202! I thought it was all muscle, but the donuts and nachos of my truckstop exsistance from my adventure have caught up to me I guess. I want to join the local Chouze gym, but it's not in the budget right now until I catch up on some bills.

My puppy Kalani is thrilled to have me back and does not leave me alone to rest or write most of the day. She is probably afriad of me leaving her again for a long time and won't let me out of her sights for too long. I told her no promises until 2018!

Well friends, thanks for your continued support and I promise you that I am doing everthing possible to write my book and get it out there as soon as I can. I'm almost halfway through the first 25 state edition and hopefully will have it avialible before long! Have a great week and take care, wherever you call home!

Juanjohn

Hello friends.

Good morning from Oro Valley, Az. just north of Tucson, I hope all are well this Memorial weekend. I write you from the comfort of a nice weekend getaway I scored with an old contact of mine. I agreed to do a few repairs on this condo in exchange for a few days of RnR. I jumped at the opportunity to get some rest and quality writing time for my story.

The heat here in my hometown is getting to it's normal summer pattern and I'm still playing catch up with my body. Working in 100 plus degrees is not easy, but all I have to do is remember the horrible southern and eastern humidity I experienced last summer on my tour, and then it doesn't seem so bad. I've been staying busy with work, mostly from all my old contacts and friends and some new ones I've made locally, due to my media coverage. 

I'm still, after having arrived six weeks ago, haven't been able to feel my old self yet. I suppose I'm trying to rush things a bit, not accepting that my year on the road will take longer to recover, especically at 55 years of age. My doctor ordered blood work done this week, just to make sure my kidneys and liver are working fine. Based on the simptums I've been experiencing for months now, I guess it is worth checking out every possible aspect.

I'm well into the flow of writing my book now and I'm surprised how quickly and vividly memories come to me like it was just yesterday that I was working these gigs. It's a good thing for me since one of the great tragadies of my journey was losing my journal of forty-two states I had compiled along the way. It was a log of my thoughts, feelings and personal assessments​ of the people and places I was experiencing at that particular place or time. Thought and emotions I didn't share on this site or any others, saving them for just the purpose of composing the final story. I was totally crushed and bummed out for days, kicking myself for being so careless with such an important item. I used to carry it with my every where and I believe I left it somewhere in Idaho at a coffee shop or restaurant I stopped at. Or maybe I just dropped it somewhere or it fell out of my truck, since I was constantly switching stuff around in my make shift moblie home. I called the couple of the places I thought I might've lost it at, but I never recovered it, unfortunately for me I did not wirte my contact information in it. 

How could I ever relive or duplicate those thoughts and feelings I was experiencing at that particular moment or place? I lamented for days,  I had to start another one with just seven stops remaining. But now with the help of this site and just reliving each stop as they occurred, I have been able to pull those files from my memory a lot easier than I predicted. And so I will continue to plug away with my book for now with the documentation I have avialible.

I hope you have a great weekend and thanks for checking in, talk to you soon!

Juanjohn