Hello to my lucky 39 followers! For the first time in almost 5 years, I’m sitting in a cheap no-tell motel trying to highlight my days journey for you! I forgot how badly my brain works after a days drive and how hard it is to come up with these posts. It’s also a pain in the ass to post pictures on WordPress without using up all of my allotted memory. But anyway, here goes my journey into Connecticut.
So what does an extremely amateur travel blogger do during a pandemic? Turns out not a lot beyond gain weight. I found out having snacks on hand and little reason to walk around is not a good thing. Sure I take the dog for a walk but even he gets bored of my company. At least I’m back at work now where snacks aren’t as easy to access. So this is a quick update on my lack of traveling.
It is with a heavy heart that I share the death of a Yuppie Hobo follower. There are so very few but he was one of the best. I can’t convey the amount of respect I hold for this gentleman in a blog post but I’ll give it my best. He raised one of my favorite people, Dr. Jen, and that’s one hell of an achievement. In fact all of his kids are successful and just good humans. Being around his family is always comforting and warm.
“Roos” was a tall guy. Like super tall. And he had a deep kind of booming voice. As a scrawny 5’8 guy with a soft voice, he was a bit intimidating to me. Aren’t all guys intimidated by their girlfriend’s dad at first? He also worked as a union leader which I assumed meant he killed Hoffa. Turns out I was wrong. As his obit says “He was admired by all, looked up to by most, and feared by none.” The moment I knew he was a sweet guy was when I was leaving their house for the first time. Rather than say goodbye to Dr. J, he said “Au Revoir, Simone” and she responded “Au Revoir, Pee Wee.” I couldn’t believe that this giant with this rumbling voice said that to his daughter. He was officially okay in my book.
“Roos” had a much bigger internet following than I ever will. Like me, he enjoyed traveling for non-traditional/themed reasons. Every Friday him and the Mrs. would drive to a different pizza place. This has gone on for years and we’re talking hundreds of slices at hundreds of restaurants. Comments all over social media have been flooding in about how much people will miss his Pizza Friday posts. No one had an unkind thing to say about this man. We should all aspire to be as kindhearted as he was.
He loved music, trivia, his family, and pizza. I love all of those things too. I wish I had the chance to know him better. I’m looking forward to Pizza Friday with him in Heaven where the toppings are always fresh and the cheese goes all the way up to the crust.
In lieu of flowers and prayers, please have a pizza with your friends and family this and every Pizza Friday.
My old roommates Jeff, Brandon, and I use to have Benny Hill micro-parties. That just meant we would put on the Benny Hill theme song and chase each other around doing stupid things like hiding behind house plants or bopping each other with rolling pins. I channeled those old days for my last adventure, entitled Quarantine Qut. I was looking pretty shaggy having not seen George in 3 months. I couldn’t take it any longer, bought some clippers, and forced Jen to take up a new trade. Enjoy the video. Watch it with sound for the full effect.
I think she did a great job! The rubric is filled out as an average of both of our scores. She almost had a meltdown on her first zip with the trimmer as a lot of my hair fluttered to the ground. She’s happy with the results but hated the entire process. It was too stressful. For the record, trimmers are not cheap and they’re hard to get on Amazon right now.
Today is my 41st birthday and I got them all in! It’s been a great year, thank you for celebrating it with me.
Oh man, are you getting sick of seeing how I spend my meager salary on frivolous “adventures?” Too bad! You’re in store for more! Contained within this holy text is an adventure you’re taking with me, dear reader.
The first of these small adventures fell just after my cattle drive but before my Gettysburg adventure. What does that mean? I’m rocking my mustache at the Philadelphia Zoo!
So we continue on my short little adventures, slowly making our way to 40. These started in August and I was staying right on course. About a quarter of the year down at the point I wrote this and, including big adventures, about a quarter the way through the goal. I started having concerns about keeping this up though. Adventures during the summer months are easy, what happens when it gets cold?
Herein lies the tale of my 40th year. What I mean to say is below are some of the additional 27 adventures I’ve taken to make it up to 40 adventures in a year! If you’ve been following each of my monthly large adventures, you might be disappointed with the size/excitement of these. If that’s the case, move to another blog that has more money and vacation time. That cattle drive tapped me out. These are the small adventures for which I still had some time and money left over.
I wanted to add one more big adventure that will carry me through my 40’s. I adopted another travel partner! Reynold has been an amazing addition to my life, especially during the corona lock down. He’s smart, he’s friendly, and he’s finally getting to the point he likes car rides (very important to match my lifestyle). He has nerve damage in his front leg and doesn’t lift it all the way when he walks. He needs to wear a shoe to keep from dragging his nails and pads off on pavement. He doesn’t let that stop him from rough housing with other dogs, running all over the place like a maniac, or jumping in and out of my Jeep. I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot of photos of this amazing guy in the years to come.
The Yuppie Hobo 