This turned into another TLDR post, but I did include a "Still a Handyman" near the end.  If you want to just see that part look for that label.  But if you would like to hear about travelling across the USA this March - read on...

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Travelling across the USA (or: Now I'm a tour-guide)

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Well now that I am retired I am trying to use the time and money I have on adventures (or just having a good life) if possible.  As such I have been upgrading in a few ways.  

A small item is audiobooks with Audible.  I have found these to be enjoyable during my driving on trips.  Using strategic purchases of Audible credits, or buying when there are major discounts on audiobooks, I have been able to buy books that are often over 20 hours of listening each for $5-$7, instead of the list prices of $20-$30.  Yeah, its not free like I can get with streaming music in my car, but with no commercials I am really enjoying the experience.

But the big item was a follow-up cross country trip.  Like last time in 2024, I was taking my mother.  I would love to have someone in my life (spouse / GF / significant other / friend) sorta my age and/or abilities to go with, but this is the life I've been dealt, and it certainly could be worse.  In any case, my mother has been the easiest person to travel with I ever had.  Not something I would have expected to say decades ago, but here we are.  On our trip we split the expenses with her handling most of the hotel stays and food, and I took care of the rest.  As she is over 80 I tried to arrange the trip to get the most out of the trip while dealing with her getting tired very quickly.   And I wanted us to have new experiences.  And so, I started into my tour-guide phase of abilities.

However, before we went I found out a way to turbo charge the savings on the trip.  This fall we are going to take a cruise on Carnival Cruises (mostly free cruise we both got at the time share), and it turns out they have a Carnival branded credit card where you get a nice $300 cruise sign-up bonus after spending $1,000 in three months.  I don't normally spend that much, but by getting it shortly before our trip I was able to put all of my trip expenses on that card.  I've already spent $1,000 with a month to go, so I will use that bonus on our cruise.  Seeing as my mother has paid for an upgrade (she's taking her friend and she paid for an upgrade to a nice suite on the ship) for all of us, that trip will be free for me, especially if I use this cruise bonus for incidentals.  (Basically, have a great driving trip and get a cruise for free!)   And yes, she is getting the same credit card and doing the same.

So with that set my first idea for the trip was to research things to see.  Last trip she wanted to go to the Grand Canyon (which we did), so I started with the idea of more National Parks.  She had mentioned how she wished she had gotten a senior lifetime National Park pass, but she didn't and now regretted that.  I checked, and it turned out to be eligible for the pass you didn't need to be 65 years old like most senior based discounts, but 62.  Hey, I am over 62!  Maybe I could get that pass and use it on this trip!  And that is what I did.  With my $80 purchase I can now enter National Parks for free for the rest of my life.  And with entry fees often $35 or more at parks, this was a no brainer.

And so I started searching for ways to maximize the pass and have an interesting trip.  With us going from east coast to west coast (Arizona actually) I first came up with the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.  While the park and museum is free, going into the arch is $15/person, but $12/person with a pass.  So $6 savings to start.  NOTE: the ride up in the arch is very cool, sorta retro 1960s amusement ride.   But where to next?  Well last time we took I-10 out west and I-40 back east, so I wanted to do something new.  So how are we going to go cross country?  This time I wanted to go out I-70 for new sights and then go south down to Arizona, possibly stopping at the Grand Canyon again.  I had seen that Bryce Canyon National Park is a place to go in conjunction with Grand Canyon, so I was working out how to get to there via I-70 and got lucky.  I decided on a place in Colorado (Grand Junction) to stop, and OMG... there is a National Park next to town I never heard of caled Colorado Monument.  I then watched tour videos and this looked like a place you could go with a car and very little walking, so perfect for my mother.  This was a $35 entrance fee, so I would not have to pay that amount.  And then going in March - OMG - there was no one there.  I mean seriously, we drove and stopped everywhere in that park, and there were maybe 20 cars in the park (its a 23 mile drive inside!).  They say in the summer that this place can be packed with hundreds of cars.  That may sound like not much, but there is almost no parking in the park with all of the cliff side driving, so having every parking space to yourself is amazing.

And the trip from Denver to Grand Junction was also amazing.  The Rockies, the ski slopes on the sides of the road, something else.  We stopped in a small expensive skier location (Idaho Springs, Colorado), which was a cool place to visit.  A small tourist trap.  Very narrow, almost no parking and what there was was expensive.  Yet I was able to park for free.  How?  Turned out there was a Tesla charging station in town, so I dropped my mother off on the main street, I went to park and charge the car, walked down to her and spent an hour with her in town, then went & got my fully charged car and then got my mother on the street so she didn't need to walk far, and kept driving.  The charge cost twice what the parking would have been so I effectively had discounted charging.  And from Vail (on I-70) to Grand Junction the road goes downhill.  I mean constantly downhill.  And did I mention more downhill?  And more?  I think I figured the downslope was for 150 miles.  It never stopped!  It follows a river down between the mountains.

From there we went to Bryce Canyon, but first we had to drive through Utah.  Utah on I-70 goes through what I think was/is(?) called the "Badlands".  OMG, the chasms, cliffs, and even small canyons you can view on I-70 while driving in Utah are something else.  We were stopping every half hour it seemed at some senic overlook to take more pictures.  Its like being on another world.  And then the signs like "this exit last services for 100 miles" make you wonder just what you are going to be driving through!  I was like "well this car says it has enough charge so we should be ok".  Yikes.  We survived, but my god that was something to behold.

We got to Bryce Canyon a little after lunch and that was also a good place to go where if you only had a few hours you could see it if you didn't walk much, which was perfect for my mother.  So a half day in the park, we went from end to end with the highest point over 9,000 feet.  Amazing sights to see in the park.  This also would be a $35 charge, but nothing for me with the pass.

From there it was south to halfway between Bryce and Grand Canyons.  Next day into the Grand Canyon, but I decided we would not take the normal way in, but instead use the mostly unused east entrance.  That cut about two hours off our trip, but it also cut off any easy charging for my car, so this was a concern.  Turned out we had enough with about 10% to spare, but I was constantly watching the charge level on this part of the trip. And of course another $35 charge I could avoid using my Park Pass.  We got to see spots of the canyon you don't normally see.  One place was the "Desert View Watchtower".  An intersting location with a watchtower built in the 1930 where we found out something my mother, nor myself, ever heard of.  There was a plaque there for the "1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision".  There is information online about this if you want more info, but you could see it from the watchtower.  Just a OMG as I would have thought I would have known about this.  And of course we went through the rest of the park, and finally made our way to Flagstaff through a "National Forest".

Finally we went through Sedona and I took her to see the various painted cliffs on the outside of town.  We did a little shopping in town as well and finally made our way to our destination.

During my time in Arizona I was able to get my son and take him to the Grand Canyon and Sedona as well.   I was able to see more of the Canyon as he is (obviously) in better shape than my mother.  Another $35 entrance fee saved.

On the trip back east we were able to hit a fifth National Park, this time the Petrified Forest National Park.  Another $35 fee I did not have to pay.  Some of the locations in the park were like on another world (I have said that alot, but on this trip it was true!).

Oh, we did get to one more major place - this time the Grand Ole Opry.  We did a backstage tour.  That was fun, more for her as she had liked country music for some time (though not as much now(?) - I don't get it honestly).  For me - well I got to see where Hee-Haw was filmed, so that was cool.  And really, the place is very nicely done.  Of course they were trying to sell photos they took of every one on stage there.  I think most people did buy them (and probably doubled their tour cost), but my mother was happy with the photos she took on the tour so we passed on that.  She wanted the experience, and was happy with that.

For my trip overall with buying the $80 pass I saved $35 x 5 + $6, or a total of $181 in entrance fees for National Parks, or I paid $100 less than the listed prices.  And now I have a pass I can use for life.

The hotel quality was all over the map on our trip. Of the nine stops, most were ok, but then there was Albequerque.  That was easily absolute worst hotel room we had ever been in.  It turned out it was clean at least, but I really had my doubts as I laid down for the night.   I think the place was mostly being used as a homeless shelter.  We were trying to stay cheaply as we were only staying the night in each location and just needed a clean bed.  But this place had no a/c (the plug on the a/c and the outlet on the wall for it didn't match!), and had thin walls and people that seemed like they were permanently living in the other rooms.  And then the water pressure was like having a water cannon, but the water barely drained, which was .... interesting.  I thought it was going to be a terrible night, but it was fine as we were both so tired when we got there we easily fell asleep even with the noise.

The only rain on the trip was during our day driving back from Arizona to New Mexico.  I normally wouldn't mention it, but the only rain we hit for the whole trip was in the desert.  It was like "Oh, you're leaving the desert, well we'll stop the rain now."  It wasn't terrible, but just so weird.  At least it wasn't raining while we were in any of the parks.

Adding up all my expenses I paid just under $1,000 for the 3+ week trip.  My mother probably spent about the same.  That's actually cheaper than the timeshare week's yearly maintenance fees, which is crazy when you think about it.

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Still a handyman...

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As for my handyman (for my mother) moniker, I kept at it since last posting here.  In the visit before we went on our adventure, and after returning I did: (#1) mount & install software & setup channels on a new 62 inch tv in her main room, (#2) install and setup a second tv in her bedroom, which included modifying her existing wall mount to accept the new tv as it initially couldn't work with her new one, (#3) fixing a toilet ("no its not broken, the seals on the tank are loose, and I don't know how that could have happened") and only needed to reinstall the existing hardware to fix the leak, (#4) upgrading a second toilet with a bidet seat (that needed some modification to work with her existing toilet).  And then the big one (#5) - upon returning I replaced her garage door springs.  That was a big project, but its done and working with her existing garage door opener.  I'ld like to think nothing more will come up, but somehow I know more will be in store for me.

And then coming home, what do I have, but an election day where I had a 16 hour day working at the polls.  That will pay for part of the trip, so yay me, but I think I need a stay-cation.  Ugh.