Note: Today, after completing the post, we ventured out on an exciting walk in the area and encountered one surprise after another. In tomorrow’s post, we’ll share those photos and the story that goes with it. Please check back!
Tom decided to head to the annual United Transportation Union (UTU, Local 1000) Christmas party in Minneapolis. The last time he attended was in 2011 while he was still working, and we’d yet to plan our years-long world journey. At these parties that he always attended in our old lives, he had an opportunity to commiserate with retirees and current workers. It was always an enjoyable time for him, always hosted by law firms representing workers when injured or disabled.
For the past 11 years, he often talked about attending the party, but we were always too far away for him to make the trip. This time, while already in Nevada, he found a great flight with Sun Country Airlines, and the best price was if he returned around 24 hours later due to higher-priced holiday travel flights.
As a result, he’s flying out at 8:45 am tomorrow, December 19, and returns at 8:56 the following day, on December 20. Surprisingly, as a Platinum member at Expedia on our site, he arranged a rental car for that short period for only $1. That was a shocker! Having a car will allow him to see his kids for a few hours in the afternoon if they can work it out with their busy schedules.
Our current rental car contract doesn’t allow me to drive, which is probably for the best. I am not a good driver, nor did we want to pay an extra $30 daily to add me to the contract. It just wasn’t worth it. He’s taking an Uber to the airport and back on his outbound and return flight.
Sure, he could have left the rental car at overnight parking at the Las Vegas airport for a lower cost than an Uber. But, at times, convenience supersedes cost. The party starts at 6:00 pm, and he’ll only have one or two drinks and stop drinking alcohol by 8:00 pm to ensure he’s safe to drive to the airport around 1:00 am. He’ll have a long wait at the airport until his flight at 7:15 am, but he’s used to that.
He’s bringing our portable phone charger to ensure he always has power for his phone, which he’ll surely use to entertain himself during the long wait.
I’ll be fine at the condo, working on tomorrow’s post and making phone calls to family and friends, which I haven’t done since we arrived three days ago. Most likely, I’ll see him on Wednesday morning around 10:30 am. He’ll most likely need a nap when he returns after being awake since Tuesday morning. We’ll plan for an easy, laid-back day.
This morning, I did our first load of laundry in the washer in our unit. Oddly, our unit has a washer but no dryer. Our floor has a huge laundry room with plenty of washers and dryers. But since we are used to drying our clothes on a line for less wear and tear, we didn’t want to haul wet clothing down the long hallway to the washroom. Yesterday, we received the clothes drying rack we ordered from Amazon for $20, and Tom quickly put it together.
The rack will pay for itself in two weeks since it costs $1.50 to dry each load in the washroom. We have about seven loads a week, which would have been $10.50 weekly. We’ll have recovered the cost in two weeks when we’ll be here for another 15 weeks.
Do we sound like tightwad? Perhaps, but we always make an effort to save every penny, especially when we’re in the US. This time, we’re paying more for this condo than any other holiday home in the past 11 years. We don’t mind penny-pinching to save a little here and there. It’s so much more expensive to be in the US than any other country we’ve visited in the past.
We can use plenty of coupons here and certainly take advantage of those opportunities when possible. Soon, we’ll drive to our mailing service to pick up my prescription and a few other items waiting for us there. I’m thrilled I was able to make the pills last long enough to receive the prescription. It all worked out well. I worried for nothing until I came upon a good solution to order the drug from ProgressiveRX to arrive when we got here, which it did after I reduced the dose to one pill a day for a week while we were in Ecuador.
That’s it for today, folks. More will follow tomorrow after Tom is on his way to Minnesota. See his Irish Cream recipe below:
Tom Lyman’s Irish Cream (Bailey’s)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 pint half and half cream
3 pasteurized eggs (important for safety)
1/8 teaspoon coconut extract
1 T. chocolate syrup
1 cup Irish (or other type) whiskey
Blend in a blender for 2 minutes, then add the 1 cup whiskey. Blend for another 30 seconds.
Pour into a clean glass bottle with a tight-fitting cork. (Use your empty wine bottles after they’ve been washed in the dishwasher).
Make 1 1/2 wine bottles, enough for sipping while making. The recipe doubles easily.
It must be refrigerated. Keeps fresh for 30 days in the refrigerator.
Be well.
Photo from ten years ago today, December 18, 2013:
