Balancing Health, Money and Time

You might remember in 2019 I posted about intentional spending of time, money and energy. My husband and I have continued along this path of asking when is enough enough when it comes to money and how to balance the need for money (and more importantly health insurance) with a solid balance of time and good health. In March my husband took a leave of absense to test out life on a teacher's salary and also to see what it is like to live without work as an anchor to your routine. He has greatly enjoyed this break. So much so that now that this leave is up he plans to give notice and officially stop working. A lot of people do not understand this mindset so let me try to explain. We have been very fiscally conservative and have saved a large portion of our income since the day we graduated college and started working. This path might not be for everyone but for us we were always happy with "enough" and put most raises and bonuses in mutual funds. Over time this money has given us freedom to leave a job when the match wasn't good, leave secure income and benefits in NJ and move to Colorado where the outdoors lifestyle better fit us and even take a break from full time work now and then. Much of what we enjoy doing requires good health so waiting until the elusive retirement that some choose to do at 70 just isn't appealing to us. So while we are healthy Justin is cashing in on some of his hard-earned frugal years and we are enjoying the pleasure of time and health over money that often creates as many problems as it solves. I know this might not be for everyone but it feels right for us. So now that Justin has all this time you might be wondering what he is going to do. First up he will plan and do some of the longer thru hikes he has always been longing for. First up was supposed to be the Superior Trail. But now it is closed because of smoke from forest fires and drought. So now he is looking for another trail. If you are interested in following along on his hiking adventures- this is his youtube channel.

Perfect Epiphany

This spring break we visited our daughter in Arizona. I was excited to visit Saguaro National Park since I had never been there before. We did several hikes and the scenery was beautiful. On the first two hikes I was looking for the "perfect" cactus. What does the perfect cactus look like? Just look at the emoji on an iPhone- or the Roadrunner cartoons. Basically a tall center body with two assymetrical arms, both pointing upwards. On my third hike- after passing hundreds if not thousands of cacti I finally realized it was not that I wasn't finding the perfect cactus, it is that my defintion of the perfect cactus was more based on clipart and cartoons than the real thing. Once I changed my defintion of "perfect" the trails were full of perfect cacti. It made me wonder how many other times have I had some vision of perfect that was in not why based on reality. Here are some photos of just some of the perfect cacti that I saw.

 Segments 1, 2 and 3 on the Colorado Trail

This fall I was often meeting up with my friend Jenna to go hiking.  Since she lives south of Denver it was fun to look for new places to go that were a reasonable drive and not too crowded.  We went to Roxborough State Park and very much enjoyed the beauty and the trails there.  On the way to that park I noticed we passed Waterton Canyon which is the northern terminus of the Colorado Trail.  So then we met there to hike the start of the Colordao Trail.  The following week we did segment two and I lost my smurf so Justin kindly went back to help me find it.  So now he also completed segment two and the following week the three of us decided to do all of segment one which was made a little easier since Laurel dropped us off at the trailhead and we hiked back to our cars at the other end.  So now we had the first two segments complete.  This past weekend we did segment 3. So now we have 40 miles of the 567 miles completed.  Next time we are going to try a more efficient method.  Rather than doing the shuttle drop off which can add an hour each way to get from the start trailhead to the end trailhead (and then again at the end of the hike to get the drop off car), my friend and I will start at one end and Justin will start at the other.  Then we will drive the opposite car north to an agreed upon meeting point and I will hop back into our car.  This will save us the shuttle time.  We will hopefully still meet somewhere around the middle to eat lunch together.  We will see how far we get with this method.  At some point we will probably need to to transition to weekend backpacking trips because some of the segments are just too long for a day hike but for now it is a fun little project to chip away at.  Also, because of snowy back roads we will be haulting the project until spring.  But since the hikes are pretty hard with both distance and elevation it should keep me motivated to stay fit throughout the winter in order to be ready to hit the trails again in spring.  Here are the stats so far:

 Segment 1:  Just a taste- 13.4 miles Dec 5- start of the Colorado trail out and back

Segment 2: 11.5 miles Dec 20

Segment 2: Smurf Rescue with Justin Dec 24

 

Segment 1(17 miles): Dec 26

Segment 3 (13.4 miles) Jan 3