Keep the Change

Since I was a little kid I knew the value of a dollar. My brother still jokes to this day that if I was given a $5 bill, that I would still have that exact bill months later sitting in my wallet.

So it is no surprise to anyone who knows me that I realized the potential of pocket change and started collecting it when I was 14 years old. It really wasn't much at first, but the little I got was tossed into a small bowl hidden in a drawer.

After a couple of years my bowl slowly filled as I grabbed pennies off the ground and collected any change I could find. By the time I turned 18 and got a job, I could really start putting some serious coinage away! My little bowl was getting pretty full and that meant upgrading my coin storage device. 

Enter my new 5 gallon water jug. It was massive next to my tiny bowl. To add insult to my measly collection, after the coins were dumped in, the bottom was still visible. But I had a job now, so things would surely improve.

I knew credit cards were the devil, so cash has always been king. If I dont have it in my wallet, I cant afford it. Paying cash for everything always makes for a pocket full of metal money at the end of every day and soon my collection doubled and then doubled again!

Every time someone saw my collection, I would joke that it was my retirement fund. I always knew it was there as a small safety net and when I went on my 6 month journey around the country, my brother held onto it for me in case I broke down and couldn't afford to get my truck fixed.

But the time has come to cash it in. I don't need the money to support the trip, but rather, I have no place to store it. It has become extremely heavy and very difficult to move. So what do you do with 16 years of fractionated dollars?

Coinstar was my answer. But with a 9.8% counting fee it meant giving a large amount of my savings away, not gonna happen! My brother suggested getting an Amazon gift card, Coinstar excludes the fee as Amazon gives them a kickback. This seemed unlikely at first because I knew there was a large sum there and I rarely shop online, but I really didnt have much choice unless I wanted to hand count it all and take it to a bank.

So I shuffled my coin jug out to the garage and cut the top off. The coins were then placed into 8 one gallon Ziplock bags and taken to my local Coinstar location. It took 4 trips to cash in all my change as each gallon sized bag weighed around 12 pounds.

The machine was pretty straightforward. Dump in your coins and slide them through a small slot while the contraption does all the counting and sorting. When all the counting is through you have the options of being robbed of nearly 10% of your counted collection or receive a credit receipt to one of a few different retailers. I chose an Amazon.com credit as they carried a large portion of the items I needed to pack for my travels.


When the dust settled and the coins were counted, the total was printed on a series of receipts.

I had:

6,637 pennies

1,516 nickles

2,781 dimes

3,873 quarters

1 half dollar

7 dollar coins

For a grand total of.....      





wait for it......
 




$1,396.01!!!!


Wow, thats a lot of scratch! I am now using that credit to buy much of my needed travel gear on Amazon. As I buy, return, use and abuse the gear I plan to travel with, I will start working on a gear review with reasons I chose particular items, likes/dislikes and how they are holding up.

BTG In AZ

Last week I got a call from a friend in Arizona inviting me to go out wheeling with them the coming weekend. It was really late notice, but once he told me where they were going I knew the trip couldnt be missed. Plus wheeling with the Built To Grind club is always a treat as the trails they build are some of the most challenging and scenic possibly anywhere in the world.

There was a bit of an issue at first, I had just sold my buggy and trailer a couple weeks prior to help fund my trip. But as luck would have it, there was an extra seat available. I quickly got the time off work and headed out to Phoenix that Thursday to met up with Jack and Scott at their house.

Scott had to work early Friday morning, so Jack and I loaded up and headed out of the desert and into the mountains. When we pulled into camp Mark had already arrived and setup, so we started exploring the river. The flow was pretty decent, but all the swimming holes were too shallow to swim. After hiking around for a while, we returned to camp to find Scott had arrived. Shawn and his girlfriend got there not too long after that.

The next morning we all headed to the first trail. It started out as a very challenging boulder crawl. Already I knew it was going to be a great day as long as no one broke anything big or got injured.

The trail got progressively harder until we reached the first "obstacle." Shawn was up first on this Volkswagen sized boulder. He gave it a valiant effort, but snapped a front axle quickly ending his day... or so we thought.

Scott graciously offered up his buggy to Shawn and let him drive it through most of the trail. He proceeded to drive the obstacle so quickly that I didnt even get a pic of it. Next up was Jack then Mark.

More boulder crawling with a nice little ledge.

Up next was the Screw. If you fell in... you were SCREWED. It was basically two consecutive notches. The goal was to straddle the notches and ride the walls. Shawn was up first and fell in. After getting winched back into position he drove right through. Jack was up next.

Jack entering the Screw.

Jack getting SCREWED!!!

A couple of the trail dogs. My dog Sedona and Chopper, Scott's dog.

A little ledge with a big water hole at the bottom... dont slide off.

Next up was "Roofie" a tight squeeze with a series of stacked boulders that pushed your roof into a rock causing it to open like a tin can if you weren't careful.

 

The last obstacle was The Big Nasty. A HUGE technical climb with a large puddle of water at the bottom. It was already starting to be a long day and with all the water at the bottom, everyone wisely winched.

Shortly after the end of that trail began the next. A lot more boulder crawling, ledges and a few big climbs involving some skinny pedal.

 

It was a fantastic weekend. The weather was nice, the company was good and the wheeling was awesome. I really couldn't have asked for much more. I want to again thank Jack for the invite and the guys from BTG for always making me feel welcome.




On a side note, I tweaked my back pretty good this weekend meaning the stretches and exercises I have been doing arnt helping. So I need to go back to the Dr to figure out how to keep it from acting up on my trip.

Tumbleweed

Where are you going [first] and how long will you be gone for?

The best answer is, I really don’t know. The beauty of all this is I have no plan, no agenda, just go where the wind takes me, much like a tumbleweed.

My original "plan" had been to visit Guatemala first. I spent a day and a half driving through the beautiful country a few months ago and since then I have been wanting to return to see more. The people were friendly and always smiling, food and lodging was cheap and the scenery was incredible. To top it off, there is a very rich history there. It seamed like the perfect way to begin my trip.

However, an old friend who now lives in Alaska just invited me up to visit her and even offered to loan me her car for the stay. Much like every good opportunity that I will be presented with, I believe this is now where my trip will take me. August will be a great time to visit Alaska and explore and getting there will be another fun adventure that I am looking forward to. Easiest way would be to fly, but where is the fun in that (besides getting felt up by the TSA).

After Alaska? Who knows… starting to see the theme? I want to go everywhere and see everything. I have no checklist to cross off, just follow my heart to the next destination.

My timeline is also completely undecided. I suppose it all depends on how much fun I am having and how far my savings takes me. I could travel until I run out of money or I could find a place that I fall in love with and decide to stay for a while and get a job. Maybe I will get tired of the lifestyle after a couple of  weeks and come crawling home, but I seriously doubt that will be the case.