Britton and I have been having a lot of hardcore discussions that get to the heart of “what do we want to do with our lives?” Then we laugh and think, do other people have these strange conversations as often as we do? I have no idea, but I know that we’ve been having them a lot lately.
While our plans and ideas can change on a dime if an opportunity pops up (like a property with acreage in Colorado or a smokin’ deal on another rental), we think we have some semblance of a plan. So here goes. I think we are going to stay in Colorado working and saving for as long as possible (with the uncertainty of my job, that is one of the unknowns) until we have saved up enough to pay off another of our rental properties. At that point we believe we will be more financially secure. With all the news coming out of Puerto Rico talking about lack of employment and the consolidation of most of their banks into Banco Popular we think this would be wise. Plus, if everything, including housing prices, drop through the floor in Puerto Rico we’ll be better poised to jump on those opportunities.
So we’re not sure still on the exact ETA, but we do have an exact number in our head of how much we need to save up. And in this lanscape of unknowns, something exact is comforting.
We are getting another roommate here in Colorado and we really think we could make something similar (like a guesthouse) in Puerto Rico work out once we have our safety net of outside income locked in. We like meeting new people and know how to run rentals, so we think this would be ideal. Heck, if we can get people that want to live with us in Greeley of all places, you’d think Caribbean paradise would be a snap! So, onward and upward we go. Slow and steady and all that.
Where to start? Well, I guess I will start at the end of the Puerto Rico trip and work my way back to the few days that we missed in between. The reason for the lack of posts was that the internet was out at the house we were staying and that was about the only time we would have been able to update because we were so busy those last few days (but at least our server and router were working!).
View from the last house we saw on the trip -near another property we saw
Anyway, back to today and yesterday. We saw one final house in the Rincon area (up the hills) in the morning, but we were really pushing it for time, so we left directly from that showing to San Juan at about 10:30am. I was really not looking forward to coming back. It seemed too short of a trip and we really didn’t make any major decisions like we had hoped (more on that later).
On our way back from Puerto Rico to Colorado, we needed to be in San Juan by around 1pm, so you can see that we were pretty tight on time. The traffic was horrendous in Aguada and Aguadilla but once we got on the 22 (the main toll road/freeway) we went a lot faster.
Somehow once we got to San Juan we got turned around and ended up crossing a big bridge with a lot of US and Puerto Rican flags all over it. We needed to get to the car rental return place and knew we must be in the wrong area. We got to the cashier lady that changes money for the toll road and asked her if we were going the right way. She said, no we had to just turn around and go right back across the bridge to the first exit -oh and pay the toll of $3.00 each way!! So we paid the toll, turned around and paid the toll again.
We finally got to the car rental place and then to the airport, got our boarding passes, through screening and on to our flight. The flight to Chicago was uneventful but long. We had about a 45 minute layover and then our plane was supposed to leave. Well, they loaded us up a little late (about 8:15 instead of 7:50pm CST) and then over the intercom, the pilot says there may be a delay, and then that they were deciding whether or not to cancel the flight all together. They would tell us by 10pm.
Well, I was hungry, so Britton and I left the plane for some grub, and thank goodness we did! They canceled the flight at about 9:45pm because of the snow storm in Colorado. They were too backed up with de-icing so they stopped all incoming planes. Too bad we weren’t stranded in Puerto Rico!! 🙂
Why couldn’t we be stranded here!? This is my favorite picture I took at the beach in Anasco.
They issued partial discounts (about 25%) to area hotels and they rebooked us for a 6am flight back to Denver. That meant that if we went to a hotel, by the time we got there, spent the money (which would have been more than we paid for a whole week of sleeping in PR BTW), got settled, took a shower and so on, that we would only get about 3-4 hours sleep before we would have to come back and go through security all over again in the morning, so we decided to stake out a space at the airport…Ugh!
Let me tell you. I have never had to sleep in an airport, but it is not the most comfortable place to be. The fluorescent lights buzz, the intercom keeps reminding you not to leave your bag unattended or take rides from unauthorized vehicles and it is kind of cold! Luckily we were able to snag a few blankets and pillows from United.
We dozed in and out of “sleep” with a few other of our stranded castaways at Chicago O’Hare airport when suddenly we heard the cleaning lady vrrooom her vacuum between our legs, through the poles of the chairs, clink our seats and weave in between us. The babies started crying and it was altogether a hysterical situation. I just had to laugh and thought this should be on a Saturday Night Live skit.
One cowboy bullrider named Sean who had absolutely no optimism whatsoever kept yelling at her which only made it worse because she spoke no English. When she wouldn’t stop, he went over and unplugged her cord.
A Cool Walkway through Chicago O’Hare -we were like Tom Hanks in The Terminal!
Then some plane cleaners came at about 1:30am and each and every one had to swipe their ID card, beeeep in, then exit out the door toward the plane, slamming it and letting in freezing air as they went. It was a comedy scene. I seriously should write this skit, I just laugh at how ridiculous it was.
In a way it was kind of cool meeting our castaway friends while we were stuck there. It was kind of like a lock-in and we all were commiserating together. Besides, this is where good material comes from, right?
So finally we arrived back in Colorado (thanks Dad for waking up so early and picking us up in the crazy weather) and I immediately called into work to tell them I wasn’t going to be coming in after all and Britton was able to work from home. I took a shower and a little nap, and am feeling much more revived.
More about some Puerto Rico options/decisions and a few more pics and adventures in a post to come. Stay tuned…
Today we saw a few properties that were at the top of our list to see. They were pretty much as we had imagined based on the descriptions and photos, but you always get a different feel for something when you actually visit it. It is like a place has a certain vibe or something. We liked the one that we could make into a guesthouse type of place, but we have been doing a lot of soul searching as of late about what exactly we want to manifest in our lives. We seem to gradually get closer and closer to an ideal of some sort, but because it is so fuzzy in our minds, it’s hard to make out. Today (it may change tomorrow) we are leaning toward something a little smaller.
These are the kinds of questions we have been asking ourselves. For instance, do we even want to start a business? Do we just want to lounge around in hammocks all day? Do we want to grow and sell fruit, eggs, and other farm products? Do we want to travel? What will we do for work/money? All of these are factors in the realm of possibility for us. All we have to do is pull the trigger to set into motion a whole new world. We need to have enough income to do so, and we need to have something meaningful to do with our lives. When you get down to the basics of life, that’s really what it comes down to. We will create our reality one way or another.
It is interesting because in Greeley, usually you can buy a property for less than you can rent it, but here in Puerto Rico, it is opposite. So, that begs the question of whether or not it would be smart for us to just rent for a while? Then we could travel the world or go back and forth or do whatever. Well, I told Britton that I am kind of a home base type person, even though I love traveling. I like to have a “home” I call mine and I am not used to renting (but that’s not to say I necessarily wouldn’t also).
I think we are really blessed because most people never really think about manifesting their lives; they get what they are given and try to make the best of it. And to some extent we do that as well. But really what we have been given is an opportunity to take our life in any type of direction we want. Sometimes having so many choices can actually be harder than being limited (you know, the kid in the candy store scenario).
Today we seem to have come to some sort of plan that we are both pretty happy with, but we still have a little bit more time here before we make it official, or even to see if all the stars align from other people’s perspectives. So all we can say is row, row, row your boat…steer it the best you can…because you never know where life will take you, and it’s not all in your hands.
I had been thinking about making a new website/blog for some time. Something I am very interested in is personal finance and our money system. But it doesn’t just stop there. I am interested in disecting the reasons we do the things we do and how we are manipulated with marketing, advertising, regulations and social norms. Part of our pull and desire to move to Puerto Rico is the feeling that we are so tremendously manipulated and essentially hypnotized into the American “standard” way of life. We want to expand our horizons and go forth and be fruitful in a new culture and a land of never-ending summer.
If you are interested in following along in some of my disections and discussions of these issues as well as tips and tricks I have learned along the way, check out Fruitfulista.com from time to time. The name is a play on words that mix being fruitful with fashionable frugalista. I have added it to the Transplanet sites link to the right on this website. If you have some feedback about different things I should cover that relate or have a magazine, book, or movie I should check out that speaks to these, I would love to hear from you. If I think it fits, I will then write a short summary/recommendation. If you’ve had any “aha” moments related to these things, help make the discussion even more well-rounded!
