All of my recent Ask the Readers have been deep and serious! I’ve been asking about focus, sleep issues and even death. No fun! Besides, why should y’all have to figure out my problems? I should just hire a therapist!
The kids are back in school. There is new snow in the mountains. It’s still dark at 6am. Summer is quickly fading.
Summer Adventures
We were traveling fools this summer, spending 41 days away from our house. Our first trip included visits to Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Our second trip took us to Maine, Vermont, New York City, Edinburgh and London.
I want to know what you did over the summer. Before we get to that, we must get to last week’s question where I asked you what you wanted to do before you die.
Before you Die
Reader Lara had one that made me tear up a bit:
…eventually, dance with my husband at our 50 year wedding anniversary
Jason from Reaching our Balance:
Own a home on the water
I’ve lived on the water and it’s pretty great:
Done by Forty has a cool goal:
Write a non-fiction book and a book of short stories
Machinist:
I want to deadlift 405 pounds (4 plates)
I just want to learn how to deadlift!
Mr. SSC from Slowly Sipping Coffee:
Enjoy life now.
And in a similar vein, Reader The Rhino:
Live, man, live..
Hell yeah to those last two. We’d all be a lot better off if we loved every moment instead of dreaming of future ones.
Summer
I went all over the place this summer. How about you? Any cool trips? Did you build something or accomplish a goal? Hit me back in the comments!
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It’s been a pretty quiet Summer for us but Fall should be busy. We are expecting our 2nd child any day now. So we’re looking forward to that plus I’ll have to get cracking on setting up a 529 for the new little guy. Then hopefully we can set up some adventures for next summer.
Mustard Seed Money recently posted…Surrounding Yourself with Good People
Quiet isn’t a bad thing!
Sounds like a great summer Mr. 1500. This summer was relatively subdued, but we were able to feed our travel bug a little. We took a 3 week road trip to see friends and family in the upper midwest. We spent a week camping and hiking in the mountains of North Carolina and we piggybacked another week long trip and reunion on the back of a work trip. It was a great summer and we made the most of the time we had.
-Bryan
Income Surfer recently posted…The Storm
Camping and hiking in North Carolina sounds heavenly! Can’t hardly wait to see you next weekend!
You were definitely busy this summer. Whoa! Mrs. SSC and the kids hit a month long roadtrip from TX, up to MT. I met them for the last 2 weeks of it and we got to hang out around Bigfork, MT, see Glacier and meet up with fello blogger Jillian at Montana Money Adventures. We then spent about a week in Coeur D’Alene, ID another beautiful spot.
Some time spent at home and then a week at the beach in San Destin and that was about it for our summer travel.
I set a personal record with amount of 4 day work weeks I had this summer. With vacation timing and other things, I had 3 months where I didn’t work 1 full -5 day week… Woohoo! This is literally my first 5 day week since early June. It was definitely appreciated. 🙂
Mr. SSC recently posted…One More Year Syndrome is Legit
Montana is lovely! I need to make it back there soon…
With this being my wife’s first summer as a stay at home mom and self employed individual (she works ten hours a week) somehow we made this the busiest summer we’ve ever had. For work I had three business trips. She delivered three pieces of work. For vacation we had three fun trips together and they did one trip on their own. I also had a new product we built from scratch at work. It’s hard to picture how much we got done looking back.
FullTimeFinance recently posted…Setting Our Retirement Date: Why 55?
“…somehow we made this the busiest summer we’ve ever had”
Funny how that works out!
My wife had a baby! He was born on August 3rd. This limited our summer travel, so instead, we refinished a bedroom for baby #1, freeing up the nursery for baby #2. I also built a brick patio for our fire-pit. Baby #1 and I spent a lot of time at the pool, and riding bike together, it was a great summer. I enjoyed the variety of your travel destinations, what inspired those choices?
PedalsforPennies recently posted…Other drivers hate me – Why?
Congratulations! Sounds like a fun and productive summer. Is there a pizza over on that brick patio? https://www.google.com/search?q=brick+pizza+oven&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJk8SUoa_WAhVnxVQKHfyyBnwQ_AUICygC&biw=1684&bih=813#imgrc=wMRm6r1YDlUUIM:
Ha, I’m not that advanced, I can roast a good marshmallow though!
PedalsforPennies recently posted…Other drivers hate me – Why?
Oh come on, we can do it! I’m up for some carpentourism. I work for pizza. And beer!
My twins graduated from high school, we took a short family trip to PA, and the twins launched in college. An overall low-key summer, but a lot of milestones for us. Happy to report they both worked all summer, have nice saving, purchase laptops for themselves before heading to college, and both continue to work part-time while in college. So far they are off to good financial starts.
Brian recently posted…Has Your Blog Jumped the Shark?
Whoah, college!
Ahhh, where did the time go? I, for one, am flippin’ thrilled that summer’s over, since here in Texas it feels like you’re being baked alive. We didn’t go on any trips (thanks, Hurricane Harvey!), but I did manage to complete my goal of putting together my cookbook. I’ll call that a win. 🙂 Oh, and we also officially completed our home renovation after bricking the back of our house. Woohoo!
Mrs. Picky Pincher recently posted…What A Frugal Weekend! September 17
Wow, you got us on miles! We had an awesome summer though, our first long road trip with the kids, age 12, 8 and 6 and a broken DVD player in the van. Kids surprised us and did really well the entire trip…minimal fighting! Figured they were old enough now for some long distance trips. We ended up with 3600 mile round trip from southern Michigan to Livingston, MT. Supper cool little town with the Absaroka mountains surrounding it and only about an hour from Yellowstone. Spent a week in Livingston and visited Yellowstone for a day. Yellowstone was just beautiful but crazy crowded. On the way out we stopped at Theodore Roosevelt Park in ND, and on the way back stopped off at Mt. Rushmore. All in all a great trip that hopefully the kids will always remember. In fact we plan to do these every summer, too much to see and not enough time! Already thinking about the North East next year, driving up to Montreal and drop down into VT/NH.
MiM! That sounds like a great trip!
NH/VT are spectacular! Do it!
We mostly had a stay-cation. I love living in downtown Philly during the summer. It’s great to wonder around and occasionally dine out. There’s always plenty of interesting and sometimes bizarre new things to see.
We did go to my son’s Army Ranger School graduation which was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. The instructors put on a demonstration with explosions, helicopter fast roping and hanging pickup, hand-to-hand combat, mountain rappelling, and more!
Mr. Freaky Frugal recently posted…Investing attitude
Army Ranger School! Congratulation on raising a great person!
Thanks, but I give Mrs. Freaky Frugal most of the credit. 🙂
Mr. Freaky Frugal recently posted…Investing attitude
We did Seattle, Orca island, Portland and car camped the Olympic National Park. Back to reality for 2 weeks then went to U.K. Chautauqua where we met Jim and Jane Collins, The Mad Fientest, The Sane Fientist, The Millenial Revolution, and last but not least the lovely Donegans (and many many new great friends.) We toured London, Bath, Manchester and spent a few days in Edinburgh sipping scotch, drinking beer, and over eating at the Fringe with new friends. Flew to New York for a 2 day stop before returning home but Harvey told us to go ahead and stay for another 3 days. Back to reality again for 3 days then off to Colorado for almost 2 weeks. We got to see what all the fuss is about in Longmont (beautiful city.) I got to hang with Alan Donegan again, meet the rest of his crew, shake hands with MMM, and drink beer with a certain somebody that likes dinosaurs. Then off to Breckenridge to enjoy the wonderful weather and play some golf. Reality starts again Wednesday but hopefully only for a short while longer. This was kind of my precursor to early retirement. I think it felt too busy for me though.
Whoever brought the Wibby that night, I owe you a couple beers. Thanks!
Hey Shane, it was great meeting you and thanks for stopping by!
And man, you’ve been busy. In any case, I hope you enjoyed the rest of your time in Colorado. Breckenridge is a beautiful town.
Ahh… my best trip EVER ! Rented a house in Burgundy region of France and 3 of my adult children, and their significant others, came and stayed with us. (And it was cheap — the price for the AirBnB for a huge house was about the same as one hotel room would have been, and we used airlines points to get there and back.)
#amazing
I had a pretty amazing set of summer travels: I went to Tokyo! The trip involved a train ride to Vancouver BC (paid for with points), and overnight there (points), a flight out to Japan with air Canada (points), and finally 9 mights at a very nice airbnb (cash) – which was discounted because they were hoping to build up reviews.
And when I got back, I went on a 2-day 200 mile bike ride down to Portland, OR.
Epic, fairly frugal vacations, FTW.
I love the bike ride. I want to follow in your tire tracks soon…
That’a a lot of travel! I’m glad you got to make it out our way 🙂
We did travel to Spain, and Vermont, but were much lazier this summer than last. I did just get back from Rhode Island where we surfed some Hurricane Swells. Apparently the waves on the East Coast can get big. Thanks for churning things up, Jose 🙂
Lazy is good. Love it that someone had a positive experience as a result of the hurricane too!
Beer lol. I went to a lot of beer fests and helped run East Troy’s second beer festival. Dark Lord Day and Great Taste of the Midwest being the biggest. Central waters stout releases, I took a day trip and got Toppling Goliath super rare Mornin Delight. Great American Beer Festival is coming up. Trying to cool down the beer love, but my best friend is obsessed and it is a lot of fun.
Other than that, I’ve been trying to build my skills as a renovation ninja master like yourself. I did concrete work, drywall, installed a window. A lot of learning going on. Wish you were here to be my Sensei. Wax on the drywall compound, wax off. 🙂
Wax on, wax off. Mud on, mud off. Hilarious!
Wow, you were a traveling fool this summer Mr. 1500!
Our summer adventures were positively tame by comparison. We mostly traveled around Washington State and looked at new towns to possibly move to.
Actually, our big adventure starts in a couple weeks. We’re heading to Japan for a month.
We visited Seattle, which was absolutely lovely (and pretty frugal, too, as we stayed with my brother and his family). Other than that, it was a lot of staycationing for us, in part because my vacation time is limited and in part because we were making a major push on debt repayment. We’re planning something a little more exciting next summer. (Luckily, we love where we live, so we’re never in a huge rush to leave.)
I I love Seattle. I think I’m going to get my ass out there in November. Can’t hardly wait!
Mr. 1500 Days recently posted…Ask the Readers: Tell Me about Your Summer Adventures
Thanks for the mention!
Our big trip this summer was three and a half weeks in Northern Europe: Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Iceland, and Scotland. (We just missed you in Edinburg, I hear! Next time.)
I’ve only written about the Iceland section…will have to start churning out some travel posts this week.
We also built a table out of the lumber from our buddy’s old bouldering wall, so that was neat. We went ahead and built a bench for it,too. I think I may have a new hobby in very amateur woodworking. Next up is my desk.
They’re nothing fancy but it’s really neat to see something that you built.
Done by Forty recently posted…Median Income, Middle Class
We just came back from a trip to Iceland/Sweden/Denmark. Iceland is magnificent even though the weather was rainy and cold half of the time when we were there. After the trip to Antarctica in January, I couldn’t think of any other places that come close to that. Iceland did. The waterfalls, lava fields, mountains and black sanded beaches. Everything was perfect.
We finally got 25 boxes of floors from Costco this past week. We will start the work of replacing floors for kitchen/foyer/mud room for the remainder of the summer days.
Iceland. That sounds awesome!
Denmark is where my grandparents are from, so some day, I’ll make it there…
We did quite a bit of camping. My wife and I did a trip to Cancun last week in honor of our 10 year wedding anniversary.
Money Beagle recently posted…Projects Around The House – 2017 Edition
Back in May I had a work trip to MN that I (frugally) extended to go back to see family in MA… then a weekend in LA to see more family….
Four day weekend in Bellingham, WA (north of Seattle) to evaluate it as a potential FIRE landing spot (spoiler, it’s a cool town! you’d love all the brewpubs!)…
Then there was the vacation that didn’t happen due to snow. I have been trying to get to Lassen Volcanic NP in CA for years. If you want to camp in the NP you have to book way early because the season is short, there’s not a lot of spots, and it’s an easy drive from SF.
This year I booked a five day weekend (!) over the July 4th holiday back on New Year’s Day…. right after our record breaking/drought busting winter…Aaaaaannnnnddddd… still 20+’ of snow on the main road and in the campground I reserved, so the NPS cancelled everyone until late July! I had a frugal staycation in the SF Bay area instead.
Next month, I’m going to the Chautauqua in Ecuador – can’t wait!
Bah, sorry your camping got cancelled.
I know the Waffles on Wednesday bloggers are going to Ecuador too. If you’re there the same week, please see to it that Mr. WoW drinks lots of beer!
Our big trip this summer was visiting Ireland! I went for a work trip, and we extended it to make it a vacation. Lots of fun sights and many pints of Guinness!
We bought, gutted, and renovated (using professional help!) a house, and went to San Diego for Comic Con. Also spent a weekend in Monterey. I don’t remember much else because of the first thing 🙂
We’ll welcome fall in our new house and start making it our new home for the winter. Also I’ll be spending a lot of time working on our money situation. There’s no way I’m letting the house delay our eventual retirement too much!
Whoah, you’ve been busy! Enjoy your new home!
Vacation: North Cal and Oregon; San Diego; Crested Butte. Earlier this summer we’ve been taking our SUPs to Gross Reservoir west of Boulder. Did you know they are going to add another 100′ in height to the dam starting in 2019?
Projects: Built a wood mirror frame to match the buffet table I built a few years ago. Getting rid of the “orange oak” look on our stair handrails by staining them “java” and painting the spindles white.
Whoah, I never even know about Gross Reservoir! #roadtrip Or maybe I’l try to bike it (almost made it to Ward on the bike this weekend).
Orange oak! Your handrails match our old kitchen cabinets which now reside in the garage. The java/white look will be great.
This summer was busy but fun. The whirlwind began as we watched our son graduate from the international high school where we teach in southeast India. We packed up his room and flew to Tokyo for his graduation trip. We flew our older son over to meet us at the airport and toured around much of Honshu before flying back to visit extended family in California. Then we embarked on a road trip around the western states. We walked the rim of the Grand Canyon, mountain biked in Moab, toured around during our son’s college orientation in Salt Lake City, met up with friends and former students in Portland, and beach camping in Santa Barbara. It ended as my husband headed back to work, as I stopped off for a training in New York City. After a week, I hopped my flight back to India, arriving at the airport at 4am and work by 6am. Whew! Work has never felt so relaxing!
I practiced being retired. I took a 10-day staycation in August and another in September. I just pretended that I no longer had to work for a living.
We went to the Dutch Antilles – Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao and St. Maarten and a couple days in Puerto Rico just 6 weeks ago. It was such a great vacation as we love the island life and traveling slow. We are heartbroken to see the devastation on St.Maarten from Irma. Such a lovely little island with warm friendly locals. We can only imagine what it must be like for them as we look at photos online of places we were at so recently and now see it in ruins.
It’s been an interesting summer. We went to Paris for 2 weeks beginning of May then when I came back I quit my job (was sick of the company) and decided to take the summer off to recover from burnout and to think about what I really want to do next.
It’s been fantastic, though the time really flew by and I was so much busier than I thought I’d be, doing projects that I’ve been putting off, reading, playing games, seeing family etc.
Then we went to Nashville for the eclipse in Aug. We spent a few days exploring Nashville and surrounding area before seeing the total eclipse which was pretty amazing.
Now I’m deciding on the next career step, which may lead to a big move. We’ll see.
Thanks!
Now I’m deciding on the next career step, which may lead to a big move. We’ll see.