Categories
Kentucky

Kentucky Derby Museum & Churchill Downs with Kids

Visiting the Kentucky Derby Musuem and Churchill Downs with Young KidsKnowing we were passing through Louisville Kentucky on our way to/from picking up the Airstream, we put the Kentucky Derby Museum & Churchill Downs race track on our “to-do” list. It didn’t disappoint.

When we visited: August 2013

Ages of kids: 8, 6, 3

Where we stayed: Louisville Metro KOA. Moving the Airstream for the first time we knew we wanted “safe”. Full hookups, close to what we wanted to see. It was parking lot, however, so don’t go for the view.

To prep the kids for this adventure, we spent the previous Sunday evening watching the movie Secretariat. While I don’t think the kids fully understood the depth of the story, they did comprehend that Secretariat is an awesome race horse, and that he & his jockey wore blue silks (Cara’s favorite color). Plus, it just made all of us ridiculously excited.

We showed up right as it opened, and there was only a few other people there and most of them were not children. I love visiting places during the middle of the week in the off season.

We spent the first hour or so playing in the exhibits. The museum is kid friendly with many interactive exhibits. My favorite was watching them pretend to be jockeys and race each other. So adorable.

We also participated in the Churchill Downs tour. It was hot and muggy, and the kids don’t normally like tours but they did okay. Each Triple Crown Winner has their name in gold with a crown and we had fun hunting down Secretariat’s. There have only been 11 Triple Crown Winners, so it is definitely an achievement for any thoroughbred horse. To win, the horse has to win the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes.

It was fun to see the track. Part of me wants to put a race at Churchill Downs on my bucket list, and the other part of me thinks it involves too much beer and drinking. Two things I don’t enjoy.

Overall our visit was a total win! We loved learning more about horse racing in general, and about Secretariat specifically. Definitely recommend to those traveling through the area!

Categories
Finances & Money Most Popular Posts

How We Travel Without Being Independently Wealthy

How We Travel Without Being Independently WealthyMany of the folks who hear our story assume that we are somehow financially set, that we have the money to traipse about the country living off savings or other residual income not tied to daily involvement. You might be surprised to discover that our finances are likely not very different from yours.

We are not independently wealthy. We pay a mortgage on a house in Utah where we lived for several years before setting off. We are paying off loans for both the truck and the Airstream. Our short term financial buffer would be depleted within months without me bringing in a paycheck.

How can we do this then? We’ve made time with our family a priority, and we sacrifice less important things. Jess does an amazing job feeding our family with a reasonable food budget. We rarely eat out. When we do, it’s either one of our standby ‘feed the family for less then $20’ meals or we are splurging because the local food is rumored to be amazing. We have national passes for Science Centers, National Parks, and Zoos/Aquariums. This allows Jess to take the kids on excursions without spending a lot of money. She also takes them to libraries, on bike rides, or to the park, just as she would were we leaving in a regular house. I work a reasonable portion of each day to earn money, and we trade having things for spending time together.

There are plenty of useful details about how we do this, and we’ll post more over time about the details. For now, here is a quick summary of what I do for work:

I am self-employed. No health benefits, no salary. I do long-term consulting for a few clients, and I bill my time hourly. This allows me to know exactly how much I need to work in order to pay the bills. Need extra money for Disneyland? Work extra hours. While it is a direct time for money scenario, it also gives me unlimited earning potential should I choose it.

For my clients, I program and do software and system architecture design, working from a laptop with a Verizon Mifi for internet access. I spend an average of 5 or 6 hours, 6 days a week working. Between driving and adventuring, its easier to break work out over 6 days rather than 5.

I bill monthly. We get paid monthly. It means we have to budget more carefully and make the money last, but its also less hassle than every 2 weeks. We prefer it this way.

The key, for me, to staying engaged and focused on work is to work on stuff I am really passionate about. A really great set of headphones doesn’t hurt either. I have more then enough work for the time I wish to spend working, and it is very rare that I accept additional work. I have clients that understand my chosen lifestyle and work with me, allowing time and location flexibility.

We realize we are blessed with a job that works well for traveling. One of the many reasons we feel that not only CAN we do this, we SHOULD. There are many jobs or other employment that allow for long-term travel. If this lifestyle is something you are interested in, definitely look around and explore your options. Talk to other traveling families and see what they do. If you want it bad enough, you’ll work something out. Where there is a will, there is a way.

Categories
Most Popular Posts Photo Gear Photography The Basics

Editing Photos on Your Phone with Snapsneed

Editing Camera Phone Photos with Snapsneed 05

I’ve often heard that the best camera is the one you have with you. I don’t know about you, but I pretty much always have my phone with me. Whether I’m out on a walk with the kids, at a beach, or just hanging out in the Airstream its usually in my pocket or close nearby. That means I also always have a camera. We recently purchased the Nexus 5 (straight from Google, we’re Android snobs like that) and it has an 8 MP camera, a HDR feature, and does great in low light. For a point and shoot style camera, its a good one.

But, my photos can always be better and I don’t want to have to upload them and edit on the computer. Takes too long. Enter: Snapsneed. Snapseed is a fantastic photo editing app that’s easy to use, has all the features you need, and you can share straight to Instagram or Facebook.
Okay, so here’s what I usually do. The first photo is the screen you get when you import a photo. I usually start with “Automatic”. It does some auto contrast, which you can adjust by sliding your finger horizontally across the screen (right is more contrast, left is less) before accepting the changes by clicking the check mark in the lower right hand corner.Editing with Snapseed ScreenshotAfter that it depends on the photo. I select “Tune Image” from the bottom menu, and then when you slide your finger up and down you’ll get the sub-menu. I typically brighten the photo a bit using “Brightness” and then I’ll pop the colors a bit with “Saturation”, sometimes I’ll add some of the nice yellow tones with “Warmth”. I find that most cameras typically underexpose their photos, so even just brightening it up a bit will help the overall image. All the adjustments work the same. Slide your finger right for more, left for less, and then click the little check mark to be done.

The last thing I use is the Selective Adjust. If you have just one spot on your photo that needs to be brighter/darker, or is just too saturated you can use this to edit just that piece of the photo. Click on Selective Adjust from the main menu, and then the little “plus” button. Click on the screen where you want to adjust, and it’ll put a large circle around that area. You can pinch it (two fingers) larger or smaller, you can move it around if you didn’t get it quite right the first time, and you can choose Brightness, Contrast, or Saturation by sliding your finger up and down. Once you like it, just click the check button!

Screenshot_2013-12-17-12-19-33And that’s it! Sometimes I’ll sharpen it a bit (under details) or Straighten if its really wonky. I don’t use their filters – I find I usually like the Instagram ones better anyway, and then I just have a nice clean image I can save in my gallery.

You’ll find that Snapsneed won’t fix your photos. I will always be an advocate of getting it right in camera, but it can add some nice enhancements that will make your photo just a little better. Here are two more Befores and Afters of some of the photos I’ve taken with my phone:

This one I did a selective adjust to brighten Cara up just a bit so she’s more the focus of the photo.

The changes don’t need to be extreme to improve the photo. Often just a little adjustment will make a good picture great. I often post a picture to Instagram without additional filters, because it looks so great out of Snapseed.

And, there you go! Happy editing!

Categories
Delaware State Parks

Delaware Seashore State Park, Rehoboth Beach & Lewes Beach

Delaware Seashore State Park-Charles W. Cullen bridge2

We went beach hopping in Delaware. 

Arriving on the East Coast for the first time, we knew that at some point we needed to take our kids to see the Atlantic Ocean. Okay, not just the kids. Having grown up near San Francisco and the Pacific Ocean, Sam was dying to dip his toes in the Atlantic. We asked around on Facebook (always reliable for crowd sourcing an answer) which beach we should go to, and the options unanimously came back as Virginia Beach (southern Virginia) or Rehoboth Beach (Delaware). Some of our good friends had just moved to Dover and said that if we came to Delaware they would come meet us! Sold.

When we visited: Late September 2013

Ages of Kids: 8, 6, 3

Favorites: Dolles Taffy at Rehoboth Beach (definitely a must), sunrises over the ocean, decent Fish & Chips (we are snobs when it comes to fish & chips)

Delaware Sea Shore State Park is located on a strip of land between the Indian River Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The campground is essentially a glorified parking lot, but as we planned to be at the beach almost all day, and this was our first outing in the Airstream since bringing it back from Illinois, we thought we could make it work. There are other state parks close by, but this was the only one with water, electric, and sewer hook ups and being totally newbies we didn’t feel ready to strike out on our own just yet.  It was great. The beach was only a short 15 minute walk from where we parked, and had miles of beautiful golden sand, medium sized waves, and no people. It is also only a short drive (30 minutes) from both Rehoboth Beach, and Lewes Beach – both of which we wanted to visit during our trip. We camped at Delaware Seashore State Park for 3 nights and took a day at each beach.

There’s a couple of great things about visiting beaches in the “off” season. The best thing is less people. Delaware Sea Shore was virtually empty, Rehoboth had more but its a boardwalk beach with other shops and things to do anyway, and we found a more secluded spot at Lewes Beach that only hand a handful of other people. Miles of sand all to ourselves. Beach gear is also on sale. We drove by a shop that was closing down for the winter and scored sand toys, a beach bag, a beach umbrella, and two boogie boards for 50% off. We knew we were headed to Florida & then Southern California (eventually) and figured we definitely needed to be prepared.

The down side is the weather. While its not “cold” its definitely not “so-hot-I-simply-have-to-get-in-the-water” warm. My problem was the wind. All 3 beaches were mildly windy and I’m just a wimp when it comes to getting OUT of the water in the wind. Hence, I just don’t get in. As it was our first beach experience on the East Coast, the kids didn’t care what temperature it was, they were getting IN, and Sam received the best husband/dad ever award because he got in to teach Rachel how to boogie board.

We spent some good time at the playground in the campground as well. We had it all to ourselves – and it is a good one. We tried to mix in some recess/playground time in between school & the beach, just to keep things balanced. We had a great time – and definitely recommend all 3 beaches. Rehoboth probably had the biggest/best waves for boogie boarding, Lewes has gentler waves for smaller kids, and Delaware was pretty private.  I guess which one you choose depends on what you are looking for!

 

 

Categories
Faith

How to Find an LDS Meeting House While You Are Traveling

How to Find an LDS Meeting House While Traveling“Its seriously the smallest church building you’ve ever seen,” I say to Jess as she wrangles Cara’s dress over her head last Sunday morning.

“No way. Really? Are they even going to have a primary for the kids?” she asks.

“No idea,” I respond. “But I guess we’ll go find out.”

We arrive at the church building (aided by Google Navigation on my phone), and it is, indeed, the smallest LDS Meeting House Jess has ever seen. Most buildings are fairly large, with a good sized chapel for a congregation of 100 families to meet in. Rows of pews, a pulpit area with choir seats, 30 ft ceilings. Not ridiculously huge, but you know, spacious. There is usually even a gymnasium (hard wood floors for basketball and other activities), and classrooms around the perimeter of the chapel & gym.

This small building, in Apalachicola (app-a-latch-a-cola), Florida had preciously one larger meeting room (could be divided into thirds with curtains to make smaller classrooms) for the chapel, regular chairs, a movable pulpit, 1 small bathroom, and maybe 3 classrooms? Maybe? Rough count there were approximately 25 people in attendance, only 2 under the age of 20 and we’re pretty sure they were visiting grandchildren.

We loved it.

Arriving unannounced to a worship service 2000 miles from “home” and feeling completely at ease and in familiar surroundings is one of the blessings of being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The meetings are conducted the same, there’s always sacrament meeting, followed by Sunday School, then Priesthood/Relief Society. The same lessons are taught in every class all over the world. Its comforting, familiar, and helps us continue to worship and be strong in our faith in such a transitory life style.

Visitors Welcome Sign LDS Meeting House

Finding a nearby ward to attend is actually very easy, using some of the tools the LDS Church has produced and here’s a run down of how to do it:

To get started, visit lds.org/maps and click on Find a Meetinghouse. Enter an address, or even just the name of the town you are in.

The map will show locations of LDS meeting houses and other nearby buildings such as CES buildings and Family History Centers. Click on a location, and it will tell you which wards meet in the building, and what time their meetings start.

If you click on a location and you see information not related to a ward, click the ‘Other Units Here” link at the bottom of the popup box, and it will show you local meetings.

If you know your address, you can get driving directions (which will include a time estimate). As you are visiting a ward, you can really select any meeting location and time to fit your schedule. Meetings typically start anytime between 9 and 11, with times sometimes ranging from 8am to 2pm, depending on how many wards meet at that location. Choose a meeting time that works well with your schedule, and enjoy your worship!

This week for us? We’ll be attending the Gulf Breeze Ward, starting at 11. See you there.

Find Places of Worship LDS Maps