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.

Some days you can stack benefits one on top of the other.  Yesterday was one of those days.  Real simple - I went to one of those "I can show you how to secure your money" type of seminars.  I have to say it wasn't the worst thing ever, but the woman did downplay some of the downsides of what she was promoting.  Realizing this is one of the upsides/downsides of being financially literate.

And the product was... "Fixed Index Annuities".  I won't go into the pros & cons of them, you can easily do a quick search and find out the details.  I think I was sitting at the "sofisticated investor" table as while other tables seemed to be mostly enthusiastic about this idea, we could see the downside to them.  Hopefully I came up with the most balanced response as we discussed this: "If you are an unsofisticated investor without tons of money this may not be a bad idea.  If you are less than 55 y.o., or have a pension, or have over say $250,000 these are probably not a great idea."  To the presentor's credit she did say variable annuities are bad, so at least she knows will say that much.

EDIT: I did some searching on Bogleheads forums on these products.  They bring up worse issues than we could see during this sales pitch.  Also, the woman wouldn't answer questions during the presentation (OK I suppose), but would only answer afterwards.  One thing however, we started food right away so she would only answer questions a table at a time.  You don't want a large group of people to hear various issues with your product when you can keep it limited to a small number of skeptics.  Right????😇

Anyway, so what was the triple win?  I was able to get out and learn about this financial product, I got a great meal out of it (everyone at our table thought the food was good - maybe not super great, but much better than expected), and I had my car charging for free just outside.  The presentation & meal took so long I was able to get 95 miles of charge, just in time for me to drive out of town to Florida this Saturday.  They even gave us boxes so we could take home any extra food, which we all did.

Now comes next week... do they offer me another time share presentation at my mother's timeshare?  Last year I didn't get any good offer so I passed on it.  I was sad as the prior three years I was able to get a free timeshare week in Florida.  So is a freebee week on the horizon for me or will I be disappointed again?  Only the shadow knows.

Last time I wrote on my finances from the past few years and of today, but now its time to go personal (if only for myself to write it all out for myself). 

So, start with the good or with the bad?   Hmmmmm.....

Get the bad out of the way?  **SIGH** Ok, lets do it.   (NOTE: If you don't want to hear the whining, just drop down a few paragraphs to the heading of GOOD THINGS IN RETIREMENT)

Well its my relationship with the GF.  Don't know how much detail is good to discuss about it, but... yeah, it has gone downhill (lots).  I knew shortly before she moved in things were starting to spiral down but I kept telling myself this would pass, that it could be worked out.  Of course I said that in my prior marriage, and yeah... that didn't really happen.  And so it played out here as well.  We've kept things going, but really it has been, at least in my mind, a failed situation.  I think we are really suited to having a long distance relationship at best.  You know, I can take her in small doses at best.  Its a shame, but that's how its played out.  I would love to go into details, but its for the best if I stop here.

Another bad thing is I am getting older.  Yeah, not too old, and I do work out to keep in shape, and I certainly am in good shape for my age and all, but time marches on and little things are creeping up on me.  I don't sleep as well as I did, though I think I still sleep enough.  I heard of people sleeping less as they get older, now I am seeing it first hand.  Naps are my friends.  I never had headaches, yet now they are fairly common.  I think it is due to eye strain, even with the glasses I have.

*** GOOD THINGS IN RETIREMENT ***

So what have been the good things you have found in retirement?  (from least to favorite)

I now have time to do chores about the house with no rush.  "Don't want to do it now?  No problem, do it when the urge strikes."  And it usually does at some point.  I hate sitting about too much, so usually after a bit I will get annoyed with something and then up I go and deal with it.  No more rushing to get things done on the weekends.  Now weekends are very relaxed.  With this I have been slowly fixing up my house (probably too slowly, but whatevah).  I will fix it up faster as my money starts flowing in again.  I have been doing more on outside things like removing old trees. And getting free mulch and dirt to fill in various holes.  Yes, the yard does look better.

Travelling during less busy traffic times is great, especially in the DC suburbs.  Also I can get out of town and only have short tie ups instead of hours stuck in traffic leaving town. 

With the free time I have picked up a new "job".  Well, not much of one, in fact I have only worked three times.  I have been an election officer.  I figured I would give it a try as they are always posting for new people to work this job.  And now I know why!  Yes, it pays nice for a day of work, but oooooh boy, is it a long day!  I get up just after 4:00 AM, show up at 5:00, the polls open at 6:00 and only close at 6:00 PM.  And then there is closing up which takes hours.  So far I have gotten home after 9:00 each time.  So a 16 hour day.  For what you get paid it is less than minimum wage, but it is easy (and mostly boring) to be honest.  Just take along a book and enjoy the mostly free time.

With my electric car I have fueling the car up for free.  There are nearby free charging locations and with my limited driving my needs are easily filled with these chargers.  With a Tesla I can park, charge, and watch a variety of streaming services on the large tablet dashboard in the car - I usually watch YouTube videos.  These can be entertaining, instructive, or just interesting.  I might watch them at home anyway, so since I can watch them and fuel my car at the same time, why not?  In fact I am typing this up while the car is charging.

Do I go out for the "senior specials"?  Not really, but I can (and do) take advantage of the freedom to make my own specials.  My favorite is determining the time at nearby grocery stores when the markdowns on perishables are made.  I can go there at those times and see what has been marked down and get fresh items cheap (as long as I will use them of course).  The stores are only a mile or two away, so its not a long trip.

And the best for last.  I have been doing major travel trips with my mother (well that's something I never thought I would say a decade ago!).  Yep, this has been crazy, but a good crazy.  As our relationship has improved over the last decade, I was hearing about her trips to Europe in the past years (she started a few years after the second husband died).  She (with a local friend) did one of those all-inclusive trips you see advertised and during that they struck up a friendship with other travelers.  Turned out one of them likes to arrange her own European trips but that only made sense financially with small groups (not by herself).  Well my mother started doing trips with her instead of these all-inclusive trips.

All this to say two months before my end date at work I went on a ten day trip to Italy with my mother and two other women from the other side of the USA.  That was an amazing trip.  From Venice to Florence to Rome and finally to Napoli (Naples).  We did such things as stayed in very old small hotel right on the grand canal, rode the water buses with the natives in Venice, saw where the Merchant of Venice was based on, saw lots of statues throughout Florence, went to an opera in a church built in the 1500s, took a gelato and pizza class on a local farm, went to where the horses are raced in Sienna, went through the Vatican, stayed a block from the Pantheon where we walked to the Trivoli fountain, the Pantheon, the Forum and Colloseum, I got lost in Rome (literally - I was trying to walk and meet the others at a restaurant and arrived two hours late! I was soooo tired that night!), stayed in a hotel (in Sorrento) overlooking the Mediterranean and Mount Vesuvius, and had a private boat tour of the Amalfi coast (stopping in Amalfi and Portofino).  We even hired private drivers to take us between each city.  Wow, writing it all out really makes it sound great. 

Almost a year later this past March we went on another trip, this time a cross country drive going from Pennsylvania to Arizona.  My Tesla made it a relatively easy trip as it can do most of the driving for me especially on the highways.  This was great way to see so many parts of the country.  We were able to stay with a friend of my mother's in Arizona for a month, so it was relaxing there.  While there I went to the Antelope Canyon, Grand Canyon, Kitt Peak Observatory, Lake Powell, Tombstone, and spent some time in Phoenix, Tuscon, and Williams.  Some days driving in Arizona we would see a 50 degree temperature change from the start of the day's travels to the end of the day. We saw tons of Cacti and she loved to see them everywhere.  We got caught in an unexpected blizzard in Flagstaff (oh yeah, it will be just a small amount of snow.  Suuuuuuuure...).   On our way back east we drove through a national forest that included what I believe is called the Upper Rim.  It felt like I was driving up the side of a moutain (just like my drive up to Kitt Peak to be honest), but at the top it was a level plain thousands of feet higher than before.  On the trip back we stopped at places along Route 66, then in Tennesse we were a few days in Gatlingburg in a motel room that was right over a creek that goes through town.  It even had a fireplace in the room.  From there on the way back at one point we got stuck on a back mountain single lane road in West Virginia for an hour (it was due to the main road being closed for electrical wire work and someone towing a massive boat ahead of us got stuck!), and then we made our way to Shanksville to the memorial there.  The day at Shanksville was our only bad weather day on our drive out or back, and it sort of fit the somber mood of the memorial honestly.  In all, it was an amazing trip.

Now my mother and I are scheduled to go back with the same group to Rome, Germany and France for two weeks in October.  Once back I have to get ready for my yearly trip to Florida in November.  And now, in the past week we (my mother and I) have scheduled another trip (for next Spring) with the same group to Europe, this time on one of those Viking river cruises you see advertised.  This is to go on the Danube from Hungary ending in Germany.  I think my calendar is booked up for now.  Hopefully I can keep up.

Not sure what I expected to happen when I retired, but these trips are sure not it.  I mean, I did talk about a cross country drive, so there is that.  But I used to say I was not a traveler, yet here I am going to a crazy amount of places.  I guess there are worse things in the world, right? 

Well its been nice knowing 'ya.  

A long time ago in a galaxy... ok, I gotta stop that.  Anywho, it's been 2007 since I started a little experiment.  I would work out how to do without paying for the local trash pickup, and I would invest the money.  This would be my incentive to cut back on my trash.   To do this I started a DRIP (Direct ReInvestment Program) online.  I invested in a stable stock, and put in originally $25/mo. as this was close to the monthly trash charge.  I upped it after a few years to $40 and left it there ever since.   Well with my efforts to clean up my finances this year, along with my finances being tight as I put so much into my 457 plan + pension + HSA + taxes + insurance (yikes!), I am taking home only 15% of my gross pay right now.  Any little bit will help and so I have decided to stop monthly investments in this stock.  I'm sure its for the best as tracking all these investments if I should ever decide to sell will be ... lets just say "a challenge".  

So to get two benefits, I stop the investments and save myself tracking and get a little extra cash.  Yep, not a bad idea.