Upon hearing of our impending move to the Ithaca area, one of our college buddies shared a story from the New York Times about the decline of the college bar scene in places like Ithaca. According to the author, students aren’t drinking less, they’re just drinking at bars less (they’re drinking in their rooms, then going to bars to throw up, I guess). I’m sure it’s not relevant that the [...]
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We wanted a direct flight when flying to London, didn’t want to transfer. Of course, no flight is truly direct. Here’s what we went through to get from A (Lake Geneva, WI, USA) to B (London, England, UK). Drive to Harvard, IL (40 minutes) Our travel day started with a drive into Illinois. We had been staying with my mom in Wisconsin. She was nice enough to get us through [...]
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Well, we certainly Google’d a lot this last year. Every time we found ourselves in a new town, we’d need to figure out where the grocery store was, where the library was, where they sold tacos, etc. Our first source was nearly always Google Maps. Lisa would pilot us into town, while I’d research options on my phone, add a few stars on the map. Our map got to be [...]
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Every year my family has a big meetup in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. We missed it this year because of our travels, but Skype saved the day. Thanks to Skype, we got to see and talk to everybody, including my cousin who’s now a mom, her mom (my aunt), and her mom (my grandmother). Hooray for technology!
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People often ask, “Has anything terrible happened to you so far?” I have to admit that no (fingers crossed), nothing really awful has happened during our journey. Sure, we have bad days, and I’ve narrowly avoided countless collisions with crazy motorists, bicyclists, pedestrians, deer, and one black bear, but overall we’ve been fine…no flat tires, no robberies, no assaults, no scary interactions with people of any kind. Just a minor [...]
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It’s wonderful to have a free day – not a day off (though that’s wonderful as well), but a day where you spend no money, all day. True, no day is ever really free. We’re always “paying” a portion of our car payment, car insurance, health insurance, student loan, cell phone bills, storage bill, etc., every day. Then there’s the averaged cost of things like the National Park pass, gas, [...]
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We’ve been at a lot of campgrounds lately with pit toilets. Sometimes, if the place is extra-classy, they’re referred to as ‘vault’ toilets. Secure storage for your shit. There seems to be some confusion on how to use them. Let me explain; it’s simple, really. First, you enter the building. Open the door, check for spiders (if you’re like Lisa), close the door, lock it, open the lid, prepare to [...]
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Sometimes when we write something less-than-positive about a place, nobody gives a shit. Like Savannah. We didn’t really like Savannah all that much, wrote about it, nobody cared. Savannah doesn’t care what our blog says, what we think. Other times, like with Salt Lake City and the Salton Sea and Austin, people tell us how we’re wrong. They’re offended, hurt, angry. I have theories about this. I don’t think it’s [...]
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We don’t watch a lot of movies. We barely have internet, power, cell phone coverage, the money for a ticket, etc. But Hold Fast is free to download and worth a watch. It’s about a group of friends that spend a year sailing around the Caribbean on a derelict, $1,000 boat, the Pestilence. They fish for food, catch rainwater, anchor without an engine, pee in the ocean. It’s wonderful to [...]
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About one year ago, we were finishing up work on our condo, interviewing agents, and preparing to list the place. We were still unsure whether our trip would ever get off the ground — it all depended on our condo sale and the market didn’t look too great for condos in Chicago. We were prepared for a long wait, but as we all now know, we ended up getting wildly [...]
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