As summer winds down, I’m also winding down two activities that have partly consumed my attentions for the last 3 months. On Tuesday, I collected my 75-mile State Park Hiking Club patch, and today I’m closing out my 25-beer Pub Pass. Both have kept me pretty busy this summer. I hiked loops in about 6 state parks this summer and pedaled about 250+ miles to … Continue reading What’s Are You Collecting This Year?
We’ve had a new round of bad economic news, but I can’t get too excited about it, even though it seems like a pretty severe storm. I think I’ve fallen victim to “bad news fatigue” after two years of the pandemic, rising inflation & interest rates, and declining investments. Just in the last couple weeks … ⁃ The stock market erased all the gains since … Continue reading Weathering The Storm
(Sorry for missing a post last Monday. I haven’t missed one in a long time. I road-tripped with a buddy to Lambeau Field to see the Packers beat the hated Bears. Got home at 2:30am and slept in until noon!) Autumn is in the air and that means back to campus. This year, my wife and I are taking a six-week course at one of … Continue reading Autumn Homecoming
Last weekend I was on a strange quest to capture a great photo of this new Viking River Cruise ship that docked in Minnesota for the first time. It’s a new 350 passenger vessel that will sail between St. Paul and New Orleans, giving folks a taste of life on the Mighty Mississippi. Why did I care? I’m not sure, but I will tell you … Continue reading The Great Chase
We’ve had a lovely time staying at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island this week. It was a terrific place to spend our anniversary and the weather was fantastic. The Victorian island experience here with no cars – only carriages & bicycles to get around – is really enchanting. As I wrote recently, staying at this hotel has long been one of my wife’s Bucket … Continue reading Midwestern Getaways
Our son has been in Paris the last few weeks and he mentioned how inexpensive the city seems to be. Much cheaper than things seem to be back home in the USA. That surprised me as my perception has been that Paris is usually on the more expensive cities to visit. Then, I saw that the Euro is trading especially low against the US dollar … Continue reading Cheapest Time To Travel In Europe?
I’ve had my ebike for almost 2 years now and am still recommending them to friends. Mine is a ‘class one’, pedal-assist ebike – which gives you a nice boost as you go – but not an all-out throttled bike. Unboosted bike riding had started to lose its appeal for me. I had only ridden my pedal bike a total of 65 miles in the … Continue reading eBike Update
Almost everyone has heard of a ‘bucket list’, but have you ever actually put one together? We did. About 20 years ago we sat on our big living room sectional and made a list of about 120 things we wanted to do. I was surprised that we could come up with that many experiences. We were just a few years from 40 years old at … Continue reading Bucket List Adventures
It’s hard to find good financial news lately, so today I thought I would take a step back and look at a longer period of time. It’s easy to get get caught up in the day-to-day headlines, but if you are going to reach financial independence and retire early (FIRE), you have to be focused on the big picture. The chart below shows the S&P … Continue reading Taking The Long View
I read today that 85% of Americans think “the country is heading in the wrong direction.” It was from a new Associated Press survey and reflects the country’s angst with inflation, interest rates, immigration, CV19 response, and other issues. 85% – I guess the country isn’t DIVIDED anymore! 🙂 For Independence Day weekend, however, I would rather focus on what has made us SUCCESSFUL as … Continue reading Happy Economic Freedom Weekend!
MrFireStation 