Well, since the railroad can manage to keep me up all night even when I’m not working, I figured I could update you on our South Dakota trip. Around 4 am, the railroad called to ask if I wanted to go to work. I hadn’t checked the board, so I didn’t know if I was actually getting called to work for real, so I went online to see. I was far from being required to take a call, but our union agreement is that higher seniority gets the option to take extra work first. I’m only a few from the top in my area, so my phone rang multiple times, along with Amanda’s, way too early this morning. After checking the board online, I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I just gave up. I’m a few days away from being on a solid week of vacation, so I can still get calls like these. It doesn’t happen often, but nonetheless, it’s still annoying.
We settled on the A-frame cabin in the woods I spoke about before. It picked itself when my other top choices got booked. The cabin is on 10 acres with three sides bordering the Black Hills National Forest land. A creek flows through the property off the front of the cabin. So I imagine it will be quiet and serene. It was reasonably priced and only cost an extra $50 to stay one more day than we planned because of a weekly discount, so we will be staying an entire week there.
I have everything meticulously planned, including our budget. I like to be planned out. We aren’t just racking up a credit card and worrying about it later; we have a separate checking account that money from my paycheck goes straight to only for travel purposes. That’s only what we use when we travel, so if I don’t plan well, it either eats into the next trip’s money, or we don’t have the funds to finish the current trip. The latter option would mean no coffee for Amanda, and I’m not sure I want to deal with that on vacation, so I plan well!
We will eat out a little but not much, so cooking is the norm, just like at home. Budgeting-wise, groceries don’t come out of our travel fund because we have to eat no matter where we are. We cook not only for savings but for health as well. Our clean way of eating keeps us feeling great, but if we eat out too much, we don’t feel so good. So, we are cooking to keep our travel fund fat and our waists skinny! A good portion of our eat-out budget will be spent on a night out at one nice restaurant, usually our splurge. Our biggest vice is fine dining. Our night on the town this trip will be on Amanda’s actual heartiversary. There just so happens to be the Swan Lake ballet playing that night, so I picked up tickets months ago. Amanda was excited about that, as she’d always wanted to go.
Though my itinerary has been all planned out, it is also ever-changing. I’ll see something new and need to add or take an event out, but the closer we get, the fewer changes I make. I like doing all the research ahead of time. That way, we aren’t faced with too many choices on the trip. Too much wasted time can be spent on trips deciding what to do or where to eat. I love my wife to death, but bless her heart; she is the most indecisive person in the world. To keep the frustration limited, I make the choices ahead of time. Restaurant-wise, I either make that choice or give Amanda no more than two options. When they say opposites attract, God knew what he was doing when he put us together!
Regarding the itinerary, Amanda just wants to know what we’re doing, how long we’ll be there, and what the weather is like. All of those things are needed to calculate the perfect wardrobe selection. She doesn’t like making other decisions, so she can spend countless hours picking the perfect outfit for the day! She always looks fab.
Another budget saving for us is Costco gas. When we took our first heartiversary trip to Tennessee, we racked up 4500 miles. We strategically made fill-ups as much as we could at Costco. It saved us well over $100, more than enough to pay for the membership alone. I have already searched out the Costco gas stations along our route. Conveniently, there’s always a Starbucks and Chick-fil-A within a block of them. We’ll also be getting free Chick-fil-A on this trip as well. We have a mess of points we’ve never used before—more than enough to keep our supply of sunjoys, tea and lemonade, full.
I hope we can make it to Omaha before 10 pm, but I have some doubts. We’re going to meet our friend when we get there. Before the doctor messed things up, the original plan was to meet for dinner, but that’s shot now. I’d hoped we might cook together; whenever I went to stay with him, we always whipped up something great together. It’ll be good to see him. He’s had some health battles of his own. Just before I came back from Iowa, he was run over on the sidewalk by a hit-and-run driver. He had a terrible time recovering from that, with many issues. He’s overcome a lot since I last saw him.
When I told him our plans changed, I said we could meet for drinks late when we got there or coffee the following day or both. He said both, and he was off on Thursdays, so it worked out well schedule-wise. The first heartiversary party I planned for Amanda was a semi-surprise; I only invited close friends. This friend was on the list and he drove all the way from Omaha with his son just for the party.
After an abrupt and unwanted early morning wake-up call, the impending 13-hour road trip doesn’t sound like fun. I really hope the doctor is bright-eyed this morning and ready to go, but I’m not sure if we’ve ever seen him on time, so we’ll see. Our first stop will be, you guessed it, Starbucks! I talked about how long of a day it will be, and Amanda said it may be a double Starbs day! We will push the first stop to the north of town, where there is a car wash we have a subscription to. Starbucks and Chick-fil-A are right next door; man, these things are conveniently located everywhere. We don’t eat breakfast, but I might need a celebratory breakfast biscuit sandwich on the first vacation day!