The days are cooler and the nights are longer. The sun waits 'til late in the morning to show up in these parts so I have to compensate. I'm one of those who needs light - lots of it. So I keep a flood light over my work area. rodtney is a night person and always sleeps in. Even with my morning coffee there is a great urge to join him back in the bed. "So what's wrong with that"?. you say. Nothing. Not a damn thing. Except that then I have to stay up later at night to get my tasks accomplished. Someone said recently that most of the folks who work with computers like to do it at night. It would appear that I am succumbing to the model. But a couple of times recently I've gotten up and out on the road by six am. It's such a great feeling, climbing into the truck to 'just go' somewhere. One day it was to our nearest city, Santa Rosa, to have the transmission repaired. And just a few days ago it was to move a house trailer for a guy who's moving into our park next month. Coffee in my hand, NPR on the radio, the sun coming over the mountain onto the grape vines - it's all just yummy; and it's true: It's the simple things in life that count. I'm a car guy. Love em. Our "Mr. Van Dodge' as we call it, has been running fantastic. With 150,000 miles you never know what to expect - or you do; because there are usually 'waning' noises. Like the other day, the rear end nearly fell apart. I've fixed it several times already. This time I think I got it tight enough - and I used some "lock-tite" on the nut that holds the yoke in the differential. Once last hear, the driveshaft fell out in downtown San Francisco. We were blessed though, and all the parts were stuck up in there. It was a shocker for a minute. We always make it home and that's the important thing. No other problems to report. The secret: Preventative maintainence. Love your car and it'll love you back. Ours does.

Last night I did 'crunches' and some yoga before going to sleep. We've both put on weight. Call it domestic bliss - it's actually being lazy. We're comfy cozy in our RV here in the woods. We do walk \though- into town a lot; or to pick blackberries. They're about gone now. We had to work hard on Saturday to get enough for a fresh pie. It was worth it though. It was sooo goodt! I think I'll finish it off right now.

We had company Saturday - old friends of rodtney's from Sacramento. The couple, Byron and Matt have been together monogamously for over twenty-five years. rodtney worked with Byron at Pacific Bell way back when, and they stay'd friends. I like Matt so it's a good couple match for us. We decided to go to Hot August Nights next summer over in Reno. It's the annual week of classic car, custom car, hot rod car shows. I saw it on TV and got all turned on. Didn't know about this before while living in Southern California. This state is so big with mountains and deserts splitting it up into regions actually. It's eight hundred miles from Mexico up to Oregon - and guess what? We've done that this year. Not all at once; but during our trips, we've been literally corner to corner across our state. And the truth is, that for us, this is probably where we'll stay. Everywhere we've been on our four trips across North America in the past year; we've found beautiful places where we could be happy living. But what's here, more than anywhere else, is diversity - diversity of geography and certainly diversity of peoples. We like this a lot. It makes life comfortable.

We wanted to tour North Eastern California and we've now done that. It's really great! But very remote; maybe too remote for us. We need to be near a city and accessable to a large population center where gay life thrives at least once in awhile. There are places we want to return to - like L.A. and Lake Tahoe; and there are places we'd like to live - at least for awhile - like Lake Almanor and Sacramento. Right now in fact, we're planning a trip to Sacramento take a serious look for a base camp along the Sacramento River along the Delta. We've been all over the Delta this year and it didn't really 'take'. Several reasons: It gets hot in the summer and foggy n the winter. When you're on the water, the view is restricted by the levies; and for some reason, we always looked at it as a commute to San Francisco. We didn't pay serious mind to calling Sacramento our home base like we are now. Still we do look forward to 'Crusing Down The River" and visiting San Francisco by boat. Why not?

Living up here at the river has given us a jumping off point - and also we've adjusted to commuting into the city every seven or ten days. When we do go to the city we have fun taking care of business and strolling the streets nearly always running into old friends or making new ones. Still, we've weaned ourselves going in less and less of late. Instead we've taken trips in the other direction, north to Clear Lake; east to Lake Barryessa and west out to the coast. Imagine spending a year in each of your favorite locations around the world - it would probably take two lifetimes. Our next big trip will be Europe and we've already decided to make it three months instead of a whirlwind three weeks. It may take us longer to actually get there; but we'll enjoy the slower pace much much more. So it's time to pay the bills and save some money. Maybe we'll buy an interesting vehicle over there and ship it back. All things considered, the absolute best vehicle overall for us is the Vixen - a 21 foot motor home with a BMW Turbo Diesel engine that was built in Michigan in the mid 80's. Hopefully one will come our way. It's a vehicle worth shipping 'to' Europe and back actually.

What you're reading here is how our decision making process takes place - putting all the contingencies into the hopper and coming up not so much with compromise; but rather with a omposite of all our wants, needs and desires. The real decision making comes in terms of whether to make giant steps or small ones toward our goal, which at this point is to eventually settle into some sort of resort/retreat situation; on - not near - the water. Along the way we've been meeting more and more gay RV'ers. There are lots of them and there will be more. Suddenly we're part of this - and it's working for us at this point. So why shouldn't we become one of the leaders and providers. I'm sure we will.

Everyone's gearing up for Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco these days. It's now the third largest event of it's kind in California after the Rose Bowl and Gay Pride I think. Leather events are in full swing all over the country as they seem to be most of the year these days. Folsom Street East is build ing every year in New York too. It's hard to decide which events to attend sometimes. We'll be attending Gay Pride in Oakland the same weekend as well.

Sometimes we like to just do 'regular things'; like go canoeing on the river. We've been going out to comedy nights on Saturdays at the Tripple 'R' Resort which are held outside on the patio. We also like to dance and luckily we've been blessed to be able to go to the Bunkhouse here at Fife's Resort in Guerneville. They usually have a big bond-fire with marshmallows and all that. Twice we've been there under a full moon. True country living. The fireworks were fantastic over the river too. The moon, the trees, the water - all the elements were aligned - and we walked home and stood in our living room looking up into the trees at the full moon through our skylight very romantically.

We've attended quite a few events in San Francisco during the summer, though. Gay Pride; Dore Alley Leather Street Fair; the M.A.s.T. meetings and some of the Leathermen's Discussion Groups.. about as much as we've wanted to do really. What have we missed not living in the city? Well, perhaps attending some concerts; dancing more, and maybe more casual get togethers with friends. But those are options we can still pull off with a little extra planning.

Several old flames have re-appeared this summer. In fact all but one of my past 'loves' are now accounted for. And everyone seems to be doing well too. Continuity is a very important thing as life goes along. And after awhile we see that there are no accidents. Everything works out just as it's supposed to even if we don't understand or think so at the time.

OPRAH's new daytime network TV format is great. We've been watching; have you? It's about being all that we can be. And one of the lessons is that we have to be appreciate where we are before we move on - otherwise the lessons will come back and back again and again. We're happy here and we're ready to move on. Even so, we haven't accomplished all that we set out to do here work wise. But our priority has been each other. And that is a very good thing. It'll all get done…. Even if we have to get another slave or two… Oh yes, that's been discussed, too. Ya wanna apply?

In November we'll be going to Phoenix to do a workshop for Club APEX. It's going to be great fun and hopefully valuable to those who attend. We'll visit L.A. and Palm Springs on the way out; and Vegas, Reno, Tahoe and Lake Almanor on the way home. Probably about 2,000 miles. We'll drive the van. No need for the trailer because we'll be staying with friends along the way - except through Nevada where we'll camp out. The van works perfectly for this. We've equipped it for living - short term. We stock up on food ahead of time so the only cost we have really, is the gas. Gas prices have been a blessing this past year. Many times we've paid less than a dollar a gallon. Our mileage is terrible - about 10mpg - which is the price you pay for room and comfort and speed. The Vixen I mentioned above though, gets 30mpg with the 5 speed transmission - diesel or 25 mpg if you get the 3.8 litre gasoline engine with automatic transmission.

When we tow the trailer our van gets about 7 mpg. And it slows us down to about 300 miles a day instead of up to 600 miles or more. And now we're getting our boat which is also towable - and it's heavy too; probably about 8,000 lbs - 26 feet long. It's a whole 'nother thing. How will we tow two vehicles? With two vehicles, right? Or make two trips. Or alternate which is more like what will happen. We can camp and sleep in the boat. Lots of contingency plans here. And this is the fun of it all. Which is why I'm sharing it with you here now. Finding a boy was once exactly the same kind of process.And here we are. It's never exactly what you plan. Sometimes it's even better. The trick is to have the vision without too much rigidity. We always leave room for serendipity. So don't be surprised at the outcome. It will definitely reflect the mystery of life.

The mystery of our life is that we're in love with each other. Everything flows around this. We have to take care of ourselves and each other first. We're doing as much as we can and best as we can in the community as it comes to us. Most recently has been the attacks we've received on our life together by some of the Afrocentrists. Living in a fishbowl as we do, we had to expect this to happen. But we didn't expect it to come from the sources it has - from within the Leather community in two of the three instances. So far, one of the three outcomes has resulted in conciliation from us/them to 'we'. This is a good thing. We all need to grow. We are facilitators. People do things in their own time - including us. That's the best we can hope for. The rest is up to Spirit. So long as we live in Spirit, we will remain indefatigable.

It's really hard to figure out how much to talk about sex in a diary such as this. Needless to say we're having it - and it's as kinky as we want it to be. By being "in gear and in character 24/7'; life becomes constant foreplay. The 'when' of our expression is left to nature. Being together full-time it's easy to know when it's time for either of us. What's useful to report here, perhaps, is the fact that we seldom practice mutual release. Our 'style' is to take turns. Each of us gets totally into the other's satisfaction when the time comes - which actually for me, is just about right now. Excuse me please….

… I'm b-a-a-a-c-k. And so it is. And so indeed, we practice what we preach. Variety comes with the mood and the circumstance. It's variations on a theme. What's your dream? This one's ours and it's fun to share it with you sometimes.

We've had guests during the summer too. Edward, my former partner and our dear friend was here recently from Palm Springs. He lives in the overseer's quarters of Butchmann's Training Academy. Some of the members of our Masters and slaves Together (M.A.s.T.) club have been by for bar-b-q Others are planning to visit.

We've had a whole bunch of virtual experiences as well. boiESQ took us to the Gay Games with him while he competed. We listened on "GLOradio" on the net as well. It was like the old - old days of an ear glued to the "wireless"; which I actually did as a kid. We have wonderful 'correspondents' in close and far-off regions of The Global Leather Village - and we'll be bringing more of them to share with you at LeatherWeb as time goes on. Time is always the problem. Never enough. The trick is balance. Thankfully, rodtney is Libra which helps a bunch. But he too, is overwhelmed sometimes with creative juices. Good sex helps. It's a natural thang.rodtney's parents are fine and spunky. My 98 year old moms has been having some bouts with here heart. I intervened with her doctor and she's stable now - off and running once again. It's less than 500 days to the millennium and her century mark. That's two centuries and two millenniums for her. Surely enough inspiration for me to at least go for the centenarian mark. She say's it's good genes. Winston Churchill said, "There are three thing s we all need: Something to hope for; someone to love, and an occasional hearty meal. That'll work for me.

That's our summer. Just add pictures. (We'll do this a.s.a.p. It's a lot of work )

Later in the day... Well, it's getting late - after 1am. Working to get this on-line the same day' it's written. Looks like we're gonna make it. Thought I'd add just a few more lines for you now. It was so nice out today, I decided to wash the van. Sort of a fun thing to do. Then I went to the hardware store and got some 'gel' and steel wool to clean the oxidation off the exterior of our aluminum trailer. It's going to look great. Lots of 'elbow grease', though. It's good meditation, actually. While I was rubbing on the trailer, I was thinking, hey, just a year ago at this time we were getting ready to move our of our flat and into our new mobile home. You can read all about it in the diary selection, "Finding New Digs".... it seems that's what we're doing once again, "Finding New Digs" - which is indeed part of the RV lifestyle. For now, moving once or twice a year feels about right. But as time goes on we know we'll want to settle in. Everything in it's own time here. Good Night. ROSS'