$250 Coffee? Damn, That’s SMART!
The main floor of the hotel where we're staying for Julia's conference is a large casino.
At this hotel, there is but one coffee shop.
Dunkin', which is not my favorite, but it was my only option at 5:30 this morning; down the elevator I went.
Sleepy-eyed, hair a mess, and halfway dressed in the same clothes I wore yesterday.
And here's where it gets interesting…
No Excuses
In my twenties, for one of my jobs, I traveled.
It was a good gig. Fly out on Monday mornings, back on Thursday nights, and get paid for the entire week.
Plus expenses covered, including meals.
The drawback?
I got fat...
NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION
Occasionally, I see an ad for raw milk at a farmer's market in Charlotte.
I sometimes cruise through the comments.
"I hope the absolute worst for the idiots who drink this stuff."
"Realtime Darwin awards right here, folks."
"Gross. You may as well eat raw chicken."
"This loophole needs to be closed before people get hurt!"
In all fairness, it is a loophole. Right there on the label of any raw milk you buy in North Carolina, you'll see that it's NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION.
Where I get mine, it's labeled as a Pet Treat. You'll see it that way, too, at supermarkets, even in states like South Carolina, where it's legal to sell.
Mostly, I read the comments, chuckle, and move on.
But sometimes, I get drawn in...
The World Is Changing
It looks like the stuck astronauts are coming home.
Not that they were ever really "stuck." At least, not in the way the media made it out - which was as if they would be left to die in space.
Back in June, I said they would get home in an Uber instead of their Starliner.
Yesterday, NASA announced that SpaceX will provide the Uber.
Growing up with the Space Shuttle program, it was unfathomable to think that a private company would ever manufacture a vehicle capable of carrying humans back and forth to space...
Hooked
When Sam and I met Kyle, the kayak instructor, yesterday, he said, "My job is to make sure that by the end of the day, you're hooked."
It didn't take that long.
I was hooked in less than one second after my boat hit the river.
Which was about half a second after Kyle shoved me (in the boat) off a rock they call Seal Point, which sits about six feet off the water. If you try something new, you might as well make a grand entrance.
But let's back up a little bit...
Who Cares About the World Record?
Around 3:00 in the morning, Sam and I woke up to driving rain.
"Good," I thought.
It was his first overnight backpacking trip, and I'd sensed him being a little nervous about not having a tent.
Now he knows not to worry.
Despite the downpour, we were plenty dry under our tarp, except for his feet sticking out. He doesn't remember me waking him up to fix that problem.
As the rain fell, I drifted back to sleep, happy to be in my element...
I Mean, I Just Thought It Was a Dude. You Know, Like That Swimmer.
This post will be deemed, by many, as political.
It's not, and to minimize the knee-jerk "screw you, lefty" reactions from the folks still clutching Pearls over their pancake syrup, let's get my politics on the table and out of the way.
1 - I believe "wokeness" is a giant, steaming pile of bullshit and is totally out of hand.
2 - I believe it is absurd that we allow biological men to compete in women's sports.
But again, this post isn't about politics.
It's about shades of gray, manufactured outrage, and modern media outlets playing us for fools as they fatten their wallets…
No Choice In The Matter
One thing I miss when we travel is my cold plunge. In The Adventure Truck or an Airbnb, we usually have almost everything we need to carry on as if we were home.
But I can't haul a cold plunge, and finding an Airbnb with that setup is rare.
That doesn't totally stop me—I've filled a bathtub with ice more than once—but it does make cold plunges rare when we're on the road.
And here's the thing.
After just a few plunge-free weeks, you lose your tolerance pretty quickly…
The First One
A while back, I decided to do out-of-the-ordinary things when I travel.
Like seeing something most people don't get to see.
Old underground nuclear bunkers, for example, are on that list. I'm not talking about the little ones that folks built under their houses. I'm talking about the big ones built by the governments in the Cold War era that have multi-story buildings and can house hundreds of people.
Or meet famous people.
But not just any famous people…
False Advertising and Happy Endings
I promised Sloper I would tell this story, so here goes.
A couple of weeks ago, I walked over to a massage place on the beach in Mexico.
$60 for a 90-minute, four-handed massage?
Sign me up!
Or not - they weren't taking walk-ins.
But no problem. In this part of Cabo San Lucas, massage places are everywhere, and the owners and massage therapists often advertise out front.
"Massage, señor?"
I picked one that looked about like any other and stepped inside…
Gratitude
I'm heading to PA today after I drop Julia at the airport.
Thank God, I'm ready to get the hell out of D.C.
This trip has been a disaster…
Options
On the flight to D.C. this morning, I started reading "Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling" by John Taylor Gatto.
In the forward, by Zachary Slayback, were these words:…
Te Amamos, Baja
Our trip to Mexico turned out differently than expected.
First off, there wasn't supposed to be a trip to Mexico.
I had to be in Cabo San Lucas for a few days, but Julia and I were supposed to meet in Sacramento afterward for a stateside road trip through the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Of course, that all changed when The Adventure Truck never made it to California…
Winning $100 While Riding A Mule
Or 1,697 pesos. Whatever currency you prefer, that's how much I won today.
No, I wasn't gambling.
At the time, I was riding a mule named El Macho in the hills of El Segundo.
There's a lot to do here in Baja—snorkeling, surfing, horseback riding, fishing, and buying houses back in the United States.
Buying houses - that's what we did yesterday.
Well, we signed the contract for one anyway - we'll close in July.
"We who?" you ask…
Well, That's Terrible Advice
If you saw yesterday's video of my oh-so-graceful exit from the surf in San Jose del Cabo, you know I still have a lot to learn about surfing.
I have a lot to learn about everything, which is the entire point of being here.
Sure, Julia and I are bumming around Baja now, but it was the opportunity to be surrounded by people who know more than me about the businesses I operate that brought me here.
I've long since passed the age where I knew everything and didn't need any advice.
Nowadays, assuming the room is full of intelligent, talented people, I prefer to be the dumbest person in the room.
This got me thinking about some advice I recently heard on the ballfield at one of Sam's games…
Playing By Different Rules
Julia and I have been in Todos Santos for a couple of days (which is super cool), and today, we're headed over to La Paz to see what's happening on that side of the peninsula.
It seems like weeks ago that I was in Cabo San Lucas for the real estate investing mastermind. It's very different down there. Where Todos Santos is laid-back and chill, Cabo is a full-on party town.
But, when in Rome. . .
The Pivot
So. . .
If you've been following along, you know that Julia and I are supposed to be in the Sierra Nevada Mountains right now.
You may have noticed that she arrived in Mexico yesterday and that the Airbnb where we slept last night is pretty far from Donner Lake near Truckee, CA.
That's because The Adventure Truck®, which should have been waiting for us yesterday at the airport in Sacramento, never made it.
And since the car hauling company didn't bother to tell me their truck had broken down in Philadelphia, PA, I was unaware of this until about 20 hours before we would board our separate flights to rendezvous in the Golden State.
Uh oh…
Traveling Alone
It's been an exciting time here on the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula. So far, I've surfed the biggest waves of my life, had the best tacos ever, wound up in the wrong kind of massage parlor, had an incredible steak in the top-rated steakhouse in Cabo San Lucas that turned out to be a strip club, and been pulled over by La Policia.
Those are all stories for another time, but suffice it to say it's been fun and games so far. This morning, I'm going on one more trip to the surf beach, and then the event that I came for—a conference with other real estate investors—gets underway…
Advice to My Younger Self
Someone asked me once the advice I would give my younger self if I could travel back in time. Here's what I'd say…
Yesterday’s Possible is Today’s Mundane
Sometimes - maybe even most of the time - when you've got something you want to do, people around you will tell you it can't be done.
Or that you're crazy.
"That will never happen," they say…