@douglasvb @ingalls No, I think they live in Bellingham and get all the rain they want.🤣

@mlanger @ingalls okay I'm adding Bellingham to places I want to live.

🌧️🌧️🌧️

@AlaskaWx @douglasvb @ingalls Traffic, wildfire smoke and danger, cost. No thanks.

@mlanger @AlaskaWx @ingalls so exactly like Monterey except with more rain! 🤩

@douglasvb @AlaskaWx @ingalls 🤣🤣🤣

I learned the value of moving to a place with a lower cost of living way back in 1997 when I moved from Northern New Jersey to Arizona. My quality of life improved dramatically and I was able to bank the money I saved. I will never live in an expensive place again. You couldn’t pay me to move anywhere in California or the Seattle area.

@mlanger @AlaskaWx @ingalls if it was purely up to me, I would be living out of the back of a pickup, off a motorcycle, or from a boat and I would be moving every few weeks to somewhere new and interesting.

Alas.

@douglasvb @mlanger @AlaskaWx if I had my way I'd be out in the woods somewhere near Tofino but I have to go where the jobs are. At least I get my favorite weather much of the time, so it's not all bad.

@douglasvb @AlaskaWx @ingalls A friend of mine who is a retired airline pilot sold everything after his divorce and bought a custom sprinter van. He lives in that full-time now. Seems happy enough.

@ingalls @douglasvb @AlaskaWx While I’m not suggesting that any of you dump your spouse or family 😳, if you ever do find yourself going solo — as I did later in life — I urge you to follow your lifestyle dreams. I never realized how unhappy I was until I was able to make my own choices for my life.

@mlanger @douglasvb @AlaskaWx I'm pretty sure I'm the one who's the limiting factor in my relationship. If I told my wife I wanted to quit my job and make it doing this sort of thing she would bend over backwards to help me make it happen.

@ingalls @douglasvb @AlaskaWx With a family, it’s hard to take risks.

@ingalls @douglasvb @AlaskaWx My wasband was definitely the limiting factor in my life. We had a paid-for house and I was making good money, certainly enough to give him a chance to start one of the seasonal businesses he claimed he wanted to start. But he couldn’t stop buying shit he didn’t need so he needed the 9-5 grind to pay for it all. He’ll likely work for the rest of his life now and never own a home free and clear again. Idiot. 🙄🤣

@mlanger @ingalls @AlaskaWx our adorable fur babies are definitely a limitation. They don't even have jobs and are extremely picky eaters. But the big issue is they don't travel well and it's expensive to board them or have a reliable pet sitter.

I've been trying to get them a little better with car rides but they get car sick pretty easily and I don't really want to drug them when traveling all the time.

Plus taking cats over borders isn't easy.

@mlanger @douglasvb @AlaskaWx once the condo sells we’ll be able to travel like we dream of doing. Neither of us have egregious spending habits and I have my dream job.

@ingalls @douglasvb @AlaskaWx With interest rates reduced, the market should improve. 🤞🏻

@mlanger @ingalls @AlaskaWx I wonder if we'll see another rate drop before the end of the calendar year

@douglasvb @ingalls @AlaskaWx I think it depends on what happens with this one. The goal is to curb inflation and the only way to curb inflation is to get people to stop spending so much money on things. That’s where higher interest rates come in. The trouble is, people don’t seem to care about going into debt to buy stuff, no matter what the rate is.

@douglasvb @ingalls @AlaskaWx Rosie used to get carsick, but she got over it. I got them when I was traveling so they didn't have much of a choice.

@mlanger @ingalls @AlaskaWx I think these two cats would have had to start traveling very young. One does like going on walks on his harness though so we've got that!

@douglasvb @ingalls @AlaskaWx I have friends who live on their boat with a cat.

@mlanger @ingalls @AlaskaWx I do too! They have two cats who have sailed from the USA to Mexico and then to Hawaii. Then they went on to the South Pacific where they've had lots of issues bringing them between countries. They had to stay in one country with friends for six months to get some sort of health certificate before they could be flown to the next country. It's been very stressful reading about all of their challenges.

@douglasvb @ingalls @AlaskaWx Yes. International travel can be stressful. For a while, the US CDC had some really difficult rules and procedures for getting American dogs back into the country. Since then, they've relaxed the rules. But I know someone who paid a specially qualified vet $500 to get her the paperwork she needed (at the time) for her dog. The rules were relaxed and she never needed it. I'd be really pissed off in her shoes.