In the early 1900’s there was a trolley bridge across the river, connecting Shelburne Falls and Buckland, Massachusetts. After the trolley company went bankrupt in 1927, the Shelburne Falls Women’s Club adopted the bridge and in 1929, brought in loads of soil and planted gardens on the bridge. Today it remains a beautiful, relaxing spot that changes almost every day as new flowers bloom.
We enjoyed experiencing a different “culture” in Massachusetts. Yes, we were still in the US, but I’m sure many of you have experienced the fact that cultures and traditions vary in different regions. In a diverse area such as the Bay Area in California, culture can shift quickly from one neighborhood to another.
When I say Massachusetts, I am referring specifically to northwestern Massachusetts where we spent most of our time. The area we lived in is sometimes referred to as the “hill towns”, for obvious reasons (lots of hills). The area is also known as the Berkshires. I am NOT referring to Boston, which has its own unique culture.
I know I am generalizing, but the sense I got was that people in the small towns of northwestern Massachusetts watch out for each other. Yes, people there are highly independent and individualistic as is the stereotypical cultural image of much of the US, but at the same time, you don’t feel that people are so independent as to not care about their neighbors.
One day we stopped our car on the side of the road to take a photo. Within moments, another car stopped to check on us – “Is everything okay?”, the driver called out. It was a small gesture, but something that I don’t feel happens often enough in the Bay Area where people are too busy to take the time to check on others. In fact, in the Bay Area it is more likely that one or more aggressive drivers would try to intimidate those in the stopped vehicle.
Similarly, on another occasion, we had spotted an interesting-looking cemetery beside the road. We stopped to walk around and see how old the gravestones were. After a few minutes of walking around, a man tending a grave on the other side of the cemetery came by and asked us if everything was okay and if we needed anything. He then proceeded to show us some of the markers that he found interesting.
It’s hard to fully capture the feeling in words, but we really felt a sense of community in the area. These stories may not sound that unusual, but sadly, in my experience in the SF Bay Area, I rarely experienced these types of uplifting interactions with strangers.
Recently we had a rewarding evening chatting with some of our new friends. It inspired us to share some of the details of things we’ve learned about our purpose for doing what we’re doing while in the process of doing it.
One of our goals when we left our jobs and began this journey a couple of years ago was to have the opportunity – and time – to connect more with people. When we were both working full time, we were involved in our community in various ways, but it felt like we never had sufficient time to connect deeply with people. We were busy, they were busy, it was difficult to coordinate schedules, etc. We wanted to spend more time with friends and family and make new friends as well. We thought, what better way to have more time to connect with others than if we both quit our jobs and had no firm commitments on our time!
We recognize that not everyone would be interested in taking an extreme approach such as we did, and that’s okay. For example, it can be just as meaningful when someone who is very busy makes time for you, because you recognize the effort required for them to spend some of their precious time with you. But for us, we wanted to try something more radical and different.
Once we took the leap and quit our jobs, many people asked us, “What do you do all day?” Of course, there are a variety of things we do throughout the day, but mainly I’m happy to report that we feel we are succeeding in the important goal of connecting with people. Here are some examples.
We spent our first five months in Mexico. During that time, we were able to reconnect with friends and family who we hadn’t seen in many years. Especially valuable was the time we spent with elderly relatives in their 70’s and 80’s. Additionally, we helped two of Maricela’s young cousins with their English lessons for several months, while at the same time renewing ties with their extended family.
Later we also visited relatives on the East Coast and in Europe who we hadn’t seen in over 30 years (or ever in the case of our European cousins!)
Several of our house sitting gigs have ended with new friendships. Over time, our regular updates and communications with the homeowners developed into relationships that will last beyond house sitting – they have already invited us back, whether it’s to sit for them again or just to visit!
In the small town we were in in Massachusetts, we could easily have become isolated, since we were on a rural property and we didn’t know anyone. But that would defeat one of the purposes for us being there. So to combat that, we attended as many community events as we could find. We went to a dinner with the local historical society, a 250th year anniversary celebration of a neighboring town, a lavender festival, the local farmers market, and we regularly attended a local church. Through these efforts, and because of our house sitting, we got to know many people.
We met an elderly widower who is passionate about music. Even though he has difficulty walking, he finds the stamina to drive himself all around the area to attend music festivals and “music in the park” types of events. Once we met up with him for one event, he wanted us to join him three or four times a week for various events. And we did join him as often as we could. Additionally, Richard spent a couple of weeks building a wheelchair ramp for him. We’ll never know just how much actual difference we made in his life, but we know he appreciated our company and the fact that we showed an interest in him and his life.
Others who we met invited us to yoga classes, swimming in local lakes, a graduation party – our efforts to reach out and get to know people where we’ve visited have been rewarded by locals responding in kind and helping us to feel at home.
I hope these stories reveal a little about why we left our jobs, for a life “on the road”, and at the same time they provide you with a little glimpse into what we do all day.
Having grown up in the suburbs of Southern California and raising our children in the suburbs of Northern California, spotting random wildlife during our daily routine was not a common occurrence for us. In Southern California, the only animals I ever encountered were cats, dogs, and occasionally birds; we didn’t even have squirrels climbing the backyard fences. In Northern California, we did see squirrels, and occasionally birds such as geese, herons, and wild turkeys, but nothing more exotic than that.
We were advised ahead of time that western Massachusetts would be different. The hills contain a diversity of wildlife. As noted in my previous post, we certainly experienced that diversity, seeing porcupines, beavers, snakes and more, all either on our property or within a short walk.
We were told a couple of times that bears are among that diversity here. We were also told that these are not like bears in some other areas, i.e., they are not large nor aggressive toward humans. As we spoke more with locals, we learned that bear sightings are fairly common. While I did not want an “encounter” with a bear, I was interested in spotting one. Spotting a bear somehow seems more exotic to me than many other animals one might come across.
I’m happy to report that we finally did spot a bear! We were driving on one of the local roads a mile or two from the house and a bear ran across the road about 50 yards ahead of us. The bear was larger than I expected, and it was running surprisingly fast. After seeing it I was very happy to not have encountered it while hiking through the woods!
I wasn’t able to snap a photo, so you’ll have to take my word for it. It was an exciting moment!
There is an amazing diversity of wildlife here in the western hills of Massachusetts. There is a family of foxes on our property and we have been watching their four little kits grow up. We have also seen wild turkeys, porcupines, deer, snakes, newts, spiders, ticks and beavers. Apparently bears are frequently spotted in the area as well, but we haven’t seen any ourselves.
Many of the animals are hard to capture with the camera, but here are a few images:
Most of the homeowners who we’ve done house sits for have been pretty flexible with us. That is, they are willing to work with us on the timing of our arrival and departure, when and whether we do a visit in advance of the start date, discussing the expectations of the sit, etc. Our sit in Massachusetts was almost five months long, and the homeowners were even more flexible, making it a great experience for us.
For example, we asked if we could do a summer vegetable garden in the side area of their yard. They had no problem with us setting it up, so we collected some branches from the forest and put together a makeshift fence, in order to keep out the many deer in the area. When our sit was complete, we checked with the homeowners and they said we could leave the garden as is, and they would enjoy the late summer produce.
Another example was that we were interested in having chickens. We’re mostly city people and didn’t have much experience with chickens, but we saw that they had an old coop out in the meadow that was in need of some repairs. We had been thinking about giving chickens a try anyway, so we checked and these homeowners were fine with us repairing the coop and bringing in a few chickens. That gave us a great opportunity to try it out without too much expense or commitment. Since we only had a few months, we purchased adult chickens from a local hobby farmer. It took the chickens a few weeks to adjust to their new surroundings, then they began producing eggs for us.
We also try to be as flexible as possible, such as adjusting our schedule in order to meet the homeowners’ needs. In addition, we always do our best to be respectful of the homes where we stay. That’s why we’re sure to get approval in advance of doing things like this. We also want to leave a place as good or better than when we arrived. As for the chickens, we not only got approval to leave the chickens behind, but we also made a backup plan with a neighbor to adopt the chickens in case the homeowner was no longer interested.
Following a little over two weeks of leisure travel, we drove to our next house sit, in the Berkshires area of northwestern Massachusetts, also referred to as part of the “hill towns”. People ask us if we like to visit Boston, but we’re nearly as far as you can get from Boston while still remaining in Massachusetts. We are north, almost to the Vermont border, and we are west, almost to the New York state border. Needless to say, we’ve only driven in to Boston a couple of times. That makes for a very different experience than if we were in Boston or another nearby coastal town.
Instead, we are in a small, rural town in the hills. It is remote, yet it has an active, welcoming community which helps us feel right at home. This region was developed many years ago, with some of the nearby towns being established as early as the late 1600’s. Our town was incorporated in 1785. It currently has a population of around 700 people.
House sitting through TrustedHousesitters.com almost always involves taking care of one or more pets as well, since people cannot leave their pets alone while they travel. Sometimes the homeowners have other special requests. For example, on our Kentucky sit, the homeowner had a setup that required monitoring the pipes during the winter to prevent them from freezing. In our new sit in Massachusetts, there is a pet and there is also a small job that we will be responsible for. Read on…
This house sit is on a 100+ acre maple farm. The family actively taps the maple trees and produces maple syrup for sale. They have multiple channels to sell the syrup, one of which is a roadside stand. The stand relies on the honor system – we label the prices on the bottles of syrup and put out a fresh supply in the morning; then in the afternoon we stop by to pick up the cash and checks that have been deposited in the lockbox. This only requires a few minutes of our time, and the stand is open for business only on the weekends.
Since we are house sitting during the summer, we are not involved in the rest of the maple producing business. During the summer, the trees are simply doing their own thing, absorbing sunlight, growing, and stocking up on sap for the next season. The trees are tapped in the late winter, the sap is immediately processed into syrup and then bottled. All of those steps were complete by the time we arrived.
If you are interested in ordering some maple syrup, or just learning more about the farm where we stayed, check out the various links on their web site at: https://www.berkshiresweetgold.com/ We highly recommend the syrup!
Having this “job” of operating the roadside stand is really enriching our house sitting experience. Of course we are learning a lot about the actual process of maple syrup production, and that makes the history of the area come alive (for example, we learned that in earlier times, sheep production was a significant industry in the area). It also gives us the opportunity to interact and become more engaged with the community. This is an experience that we never would have had otherwise.
For anyone who might be interested in looking into this type of house sitting, the website we go through is TrustedHousesitters.com. There is an annual fee to join and to be able to see the full listings, although it does allow non-members to preview some information. The last time I checked, the fee was $119 per year. If anyone is interested, use the following link for a 25% discount: https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/refer/RAF123171/
I’ve mentioned in earlier posts that some things that we are used to having easy access to – grocery stores, Starbucks, etc. – are not so readily available near the small town we were living in in Mexico. There are usually local alternatives of course, but I wrote about it to give some idea of what life was like for an American living in Mexico versus living at home in California.
Since leaving Mexico in January, we have lived in a couple of small towns in the US. I can now report that many of those same conveniences are much less convenient in small-town America than in the suburbs of California. Interestingly, in some cases the options available in the US are more limited than they are in Mexico.
Here are some of the key places I thought of as either “essential” for everyday living, or something that we “expect” to be available nearby. I included distances in both miles and minutes, for each of the three small towns we’ve lived in over the past year. The ones with an asterisk (*) are the “winners” for that category.
Beginning with Mexico, here are the distances from our small town there:
* Hospital – 14 miles / 25 minutes
Starbucks – 35 miles / 70 minutes
Full service grocery store – 18 miles / 29 minutes
* Convenience grocery store – 0.1 miles / 2 minutes walking
Home Depot – 36 miles / 72 minutes
Name brand fast food – 19 miles / 31 minutes
* ATM – 0.7 miles / 4 minutes
Walmart – 19 miles / 31 minutes
Costco – 90 miles / 114 minutes
Notes – Even though our town in Mexico has only three winning categories, it is the only small town we’ve been in where living without a car would be an option. The three winning categories are critical ones – medical care, cash and groceries. At least 90% of what someone would need for daily living are available within walking distance from our house, i.e., less than a mile away. In fact, the entire town isn’t much more than a mile across, so all neighbors are within walking distance as well. For items too large to carry, delivery is often available for little or no charge. For items not available in town, there are frequent buses into a city of 99,000 population, about half an hour away. This city does not have a Home Depot or Starbucks, but it has Walmart, a full size grocery store, and pretty much anything else you would need, including alternatives to Home Depot and Starbucks.
After leaving Mexico, we lived in Kentucky for a couple of months. Here are the distances from our place in Kentucky:
Hospital – 20 miles / 32 minutes
* Starbucks – 20 miles / 31 minutes
* Full service grocery store – 9 miles / 16 minutes
Convenience grocery store – 9 miles / 16 minutes
Home Depot – 34 miles / 45 minutes
* Name brand fast food – 9 miles / 16 minutes
ATM – 9 miles / 16 minutes
* Walmart – 10 miles / 19 minutes
* Costco – 50 miles / 56 minutes
Notes – Even though Kentucky appears to be the winner with 5 winning categories, nothing is available any closer than the main town, which is 9 miles away. There is nothing available within walking distance, and no public transportation out where we were. There are just three neighbors within walking distance, and not all of these three live there year round. We were between two large cities, 45-60 minutes away, where we could find multiple options for anything we needed or wanted.
Most recently, we have been living in a small town in the hills of northwestern Massachusetts. Here are the distances from our place in Massachusetts:
Hospital – 24 miles / 39 minutes
Starbucks – 33 miles / 54 minutes
Full service grocery store – 21 miles / 32 minutes
Convenience grocery store – 4.6 miles / 12 minutes
* Home Depot – 21 miles / 32 minutes
Name brand fast food – 21 miles / 32 minutes
ATM – 18 miles / 27 minutes
Walmart – 24 miles / 40 minutes
Costco – 56 miles / 66 minutes
Notes – We are currently living in the Berkshires region of Massachusetts, a popular destination for skiing, water activities, and summer homes, especially for people in the Boston and New York areas. However, as you can see with it winning only one category, it is very remote. There are probably a dozen neighbors within walking distance, but nothing else is walkable and there is no public transportation. It’s similar to Kentucky in that most things are available in the nearest town, except that here the nearest town is 21 miles away, on winding mountain roads.
So which location is the winner?
It depends on what you are looking for. Mexico was super convenient for daily needs. We could visit neighbors and purchase nearly anything we wanted without any need for a car. In Kentucky, Walmart and a full service grocery store were 9-10 miles away, making it relatively convenient. In Massachusetts, the distances are generally much further; however, there are various nearby neighbors and there is also a sense of people watching out for each other. We can’t really say we’ve picked a winner. We have thoroughly enjoyed each place we’ve stayed. Perhaps we will get to know additional towns and their people in the future.
We retired in July 2017 and have been traveling ever since. One of our reasons for retiring early was that we felt there were ways we could live significantly cheaper than we had been while employed.
Initially, this meant moving to Mexico. We have a house available to us in Mexico where we can live rent-free*. It’s not a completely free living arrangement, since there are the other usual expenses associated with living anywhere, primarily utilities, but these expenses are lower in Mexico than they are in the US. The house is not in a tourist area, so food costs and other living expenses are not inflated. Aside from the cost of traveling to Mexico, the actual cost of living there is very reasonable – at least it is for someone who has savings and pension income in dollars; it’s not as easy for locals who earn pesos.
After almost five months in Mexico we discovered another living arrangement that would allow us to continue to live at very low cost and NOT limit us to living in Mexico, and that is house sitting. Our experience house sitting is described in more detail in other posts.
Now that we have nearly a year of experience, we have some expense data that we can share. We have been tracking every expense for eight months; we did not track our first two months, as we were traveling across the US and then in transition mode and we didn’t feel that period would be representative of ongoing expenses.
Our expense tracking begins with our first full month in Mexico, September 2017, and continues through April 2018. Our average monthly living cost, with just a few exceptions**, is $1,880/month. This includes four months in Mexico and four months in the US, and it includes everyday living expenses as well as travel costs.
I won’t deny that we are cautious about our expenses, e.g., we are not traveling first class, but at the same time we honestly do not feel deprived. The $1,880 monthly average includes a three-week driving trip from Mexico to California to Kentucky, a week-long side trip with family members who visited us in Kentucky, and another three-week trip from Kentucky to New York City to Massachusetts. It includes lodging, eating out, gasoline, tourist activities. We don’t dine at expensive restaurants, but we do eat out on the road, as well as frequenting coffee shops. Then when we are in whatever location we currently call home, we mostly cook at home, enjoying whatever we desire made with good quality ingredients.
One thing missing from this analysis is what we spent when we were both working before we retired. Unfortunately, we did not track our expenses back then. However, I know we were spending everything we were earning, and not putting any more funds into savings than we are now.
The bottom line is, we are living very contentedly, seeing more places than we would have imagined, and spending less money than we expected!
*A note for those who don’t have a rent-free house available to them: in the town where we live, a small, bare bones, older apartment could be rented for as little as $20 per month. A more realistic living arrangement, but still below what most Americans are accustomed to, can be had for $150-$200 per month. Prices go up from there, and if you want to live in American-style comfort in a location frequented by tourists, it will cost significantly more, approaching American prices.
**While I consider the $1,880 monthly expense number to include “all” of our spending, there are a couple of things left out of this number:
• The mortgage on our house (primary residence) along with other expenses associated with homeownership. The reasoning for this is the house is rented out and the rent covers these costs. That’s a separate budget as I see it.
• Some of the remodel costs for the house in Mexico. I considered these as optional, one-time expenses, not ongoing living expenses.
• Tuition and living expenses for our kids in college. I consider these as temporary, and also not representative of our regular living expenses.
• We set aside some money into savings each month for large future expenses, such as when the car needs to be replaced. The amount set aside varies, and instead of including the amount of the savings in our budget, we would reflect the actual cost of any such expenses when they occur.
For those who read my earlier post about molasses, i.e., it’s lack of availability in Mexico, rest assured that the situation is much better in Massachusetts. At the grocery store today there were at least four options. Note there was also a large selection of chocolate chips in the same shelf area, another item that is unavailable in Mexico.
We parted ways with Maricela’s brother in New York City and headed to New England where we spent a week exploring around the area – Connecticut, Massachusetts, upstate New York, Vermont. We’ve run into snow flurries nearly every day, and it’s very cold (at least by my California standards). After all, we are halfway through April.
We found many places still “closed for the season”, and those that are open have shortened hours. We stopped by two state parks in Vermont to see if we could go for a little hike. One was completely closed. The other had a sign on the road at the entrance: “Snowmobiles only”. From what we’ve seen, most things don’t open for the season until May 31.
The trees are not budding yet, daffodils haven’t bloomed… It’s definitely still winter here.
Yesterday, today (April 16), and tomorrow we’re getting a mix of snow and freezing rain. Here’s the view outside our window this morning:
From what I hear, the next season we have to look forward to is “mud season”!
Today we got to visit a place in New York that has special meaning to me. At the turn of the century, my grandparents immigrated to New York from Scotland. My grandfather was a skilled stone carver and one of the projects he worked on was St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
We attended Easter mass here at the church today, as did thousands of others. There was quite a festive atmosphere, primarily outside the church, with large crowds and multiple street closures.
Below are some photos of the church – focusing on the stonework of course!
Blessings to all on this resurrection Sunday.
We arrived in New York City a couple of days ago. As we got close to the city, traffic was so bad that it took about an hour and a half to drive the last eight miles. This reinforced our decision to not drive in NYC again until we were leaving. So we parked the van and the next day we purchased a weekly pass for the subway system; that’s all we’ve been using to explore the city.
Our experience with New York City transit was very good. We visited in early spring, in late March, and it snowed a couple of times during the week we were there. Our AirBnB was within walking distance from at least two subway stations (there may have been another station on another line, but we never had a need to look for it). After a short walk to one of the stations, which was easy enough even when it was snowing, trains showed up quickly and brought us anywhere in the city. It took us about 45 minutes to get from our AirBnB to anywhere in Manhattan.
Having lived in the Bay Area and ridden BART – the Bay Area Rapid Transit system – for many years, it’s interesting to see the differences between the two subway systems. For the most part, I would rate the New York system as superior. Not just for the obvious reason that the NYC metro system is much more extensive than BART, but the daily user experience is a bit better in various ways too.
For example, look at the photo below. In many of the NYC train cars, there is a map of the line you’re on, and it has little lights to show what stops remain in the direction you’re headed. One by one they go out as you leave for the next station. Plus, announcements are made over the PA system in the trains and passengers can actually hear and understand what is being said; this is often not the case on BART.
A one-way ride to anywhere in NY costs $2.75. On BART a one-way ticket from Pleasanton to San Francisco costs about $6.50, and that’s not the most expensive ride. Alternatively, in NY you can purchase an unlimited weekly pass for $32.00, which allows as many on and off trips as you want. There’s no such thing as an unlimited pass on BART.
Most importantly, trains run very frequently. Some lines run every 2-5 minutes! On BART, the train to Pleasanton runs every 15-20 minutes, depending on whether it’s peak travel time or not.
Other small things:
The main area where BART surpasses the NY subway is that the ClipperCard ticket system is nicer to use than paper tickets, which NY still relies on. And finally, as dirty as BART is, it seems to be slightly cleaner overall than the NY system.
We’re having a great time exploring New York by train!
From Philadelphia we went on to New York City. We drove to where we would be staying, at an AirBnB in the South Bronx, with a plan to leave the van parked there for the week and relying on public transportation. For the most part, this worked out fine. I had checked with the AirBnB host in advance regarding the parking situation, and they said there was “plenty” of free street parking in the neighborhood. What they didn’t mention is the parking restrictions – one side of the street was restricted from 9-11 am on Tuesdays, and the other side on Thursdays. So we had to move the van (i.e., search for parking) several times while we were there. However, despite the density of the housing, there seemed to be relatively more parking available than in Oakland, CA, where I worked for many years. My theory is that car ownership is expensive and inconvenient in New York City and there are a variety of public transit options available, so a smaller percentage of people own cars.
I am not a city person. I grew up in the suburbs in Southern California, and then as an adult I have spent my life in the suburbs of the San Francisco Bay Area. I have worked for many years in Berkeley and Oakland, which are very urbanized, and while I enjoy the culture, the restaurants, museums, and the constant buzz of life in these cities, my real comfort zone is back home in the suburbs. Surprisingly to me, during our week in New York City, I found it to be very, what I call “liveable”. We met neighbors near our AirBnB in the Bronx, we found every type of food imaginable, we felt like we could get around to anywhere we wanted via public transit in a reasonable amount of time. We were impressed by the overall quality of life we experienced during our week in New York.
There is so much to see in New York that we didn’t even consider trying to fit everything in. We took our time visiting places we were interested in – the Metropolitan Museum, Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, the World Trade Center / 911 Memorial, Wall Street, Battery Park – and did our best to enjoy ourselves, without rushing through everything.
When we left Niagara Falls, we planned a route south that took us through the amazing countryside of central Pennsylvania. I find this to be some of the most beautiful countryside in the world, with gentle rolling hills, small family farms, horse-and-buggies on the road, and many other great views. We passed through on our way to Philadelphia, where we only stayed there for two days. If I were to do it again, I would plan to spend additional time there. We found much more of interest in this area than we expected. Of course, this area is full of historical sites, but the art museums were also richly endowed. We only got a brief look at some of the sites, and hope to return again in the future.
