As we finish up our time here in Colorado, we have come up with a few other “Bucket List” items we have to do in Colorado before leaving. One of them is right in our backyard: eat Rocky Mountain Oysters. For those of you who don’t live in Colorado, you may not know what this infamous food is. It is most definitely NOT seafood (or even Colorado Lobsters). Rocky Mountain Oysters are …drumroll…bull testicles!
The most famous place to try Rocky Mountain Oysters is Bruce’s Bar in Severance. Bruce’s Bar Severance, Colorado
Very Unfair! Murals
We went there with our nephew and my mom and her boyfriend Anthony.
At Bruce’s Bar
Bruce’s Menu includes Cow, Buffalo and Turkey “oysters”
Bruce’s would make a good place for a bar scene in a movie. Very simple cafeteria layout, lots of bar food and filled with cowboys and small-town folk. Because this was our first time ever trying Rocky Mountain Oysters, we asked if we could see what they looked like before they were breaded and fried…
They come whole and frozen (but skinned and somewhat processed)
Then they are sliced and thawed before being breaded and fried
They come out looking like chicken strips and are served with cocktail sauce
A long strip
Chewy!
Must not have been too bad!
They even had a live 3-piece band that night!
Overall, we had a great time and suggest everyone add “eat bull testicles” to their adventurous bucket list! 🙂
Lately Puerto Rico has really been in our mind. We are MORE THAN READY to move mentally/emotionally. So we have been thinking about getting ready to move physically. We wrote up all the things we will need to do in the next few months so that we can just up and move there. A lot of this is a general checklist for moving pretty much anywhere, but some of it is specific to moving to Rincon Puerto Rico. After living somewhere for so long (Greeley) there are things we just don’t think about much. We have lived here in our first home for 10 years. Things like car titles, using up old stuff, medical and school transcripts/records , making sure we have Social Security cards, etc. Also we don’t really have an “address” to ship stuff to, so that will be something to figure out.
For those of you who have already made the move to Puerto Rico (or elsewhere), are there any other things we should think about/take care of before we ship out?
Banks (change over address and ensure future bank cards are delivered to us)
Open new Bank Account inPuerto Rico
Cars (get titles together, sell)
Buy new car inPuerto Rico
Go thru all Stuff/Junk (to friends/family, charity, sell or toss). *Question: How much should we take with or replace?
Find new homes for the chickens
Get Kitty’s vet records and learn what it will take to bring him with us on the airplane
Get house cleaned professionally (carpet, bathrooms, kitchen, etc)
Put remaining properties under managment(2)
Host a going away party!
Put together all personal / professional records
Call insurance agents to cancel car insurance and change home policies to rental and update address
Sell assets we can’t manage from afar
Use up old stuff and don’t buy new stuff (Frozen food, cleaners, canned food, bathroom supplies, etc)
Look for boxes and pack up / label and have family ship to us when we get there
Buy airline tickets and line up rental car for appx 1 month while we look for a new car
Find new homes for our plants (coffee, banana, orchids)
Get tax documents together for 2012 filing
Update address with property tax assessor, 401k, IRA, etc
Setup things we need down there (we already have water and electric. Mayyyybe internet? Cell phone? )
Find new server / hosting for website and promote
We have been thinking about this a lot more lately as it appears we will be moving our date up. We don’t have an exact new deadline but we figure we can take care of a lot of these things now in preparation. Stay tuned for posts on many of the items in the above list!
Well I have just about rounded out my stressful on-call week and I turn the pager over on Monday. I had a Saturday upgrade that went flawlessly, which is a good feeling and proof of my accomplishments thus far in learning an entirely new language (TACL) as well as all the intricate goings on for the custom applications the company I work for has developed. Most of the information isn’t attainable except thru doing and it’s been the most challenging position I’ve ever taken on. It will feel WONDERFUL to hand over on-call come Monday and have my after work life back for a week. To do things like see the sky, mow the lawn, do the dishes…You know, the basics. I took on the challenge for a few reasons, one was because I knew I could do it and another was for the experience of doing it. Not to just say things are “stressful” but to know how that feels. Not only to say I took on a challenge but to go thru that expeirence and come out on the other side of it. It may just be that it’s time to let those experiences go, and take on something new again.
What the Feeling of Freedom Might Look Like
This is an interesting feeling for me because when I can go for a walk and see the sky it feels…well I feel totally and comletely free again. The juxtaposition of these two mental states is drastic.
This past week has been challenging not only for me, but for Cassie as well. I’d say we have come the closest to pulling the “GTFO lever” we have been so far. This is a good thing, as it means we are ready not only financially but also mentally for the transformation/graduation into our new lives. We are at the point where our minds are picking out signs from the universe that our new program has been developed and is ready to run.
“The program has been developed and ready to run“: I have had the strange belief that our environment is simply a software program since I was little and that when a person goes on vacation, it is just a new “level” in the game. When you go to new places it takes time to get there because it has to be created or developed before you arrive. All the people, places, plants, roads and everything in your story that makes up our reality has to be created first.
So I think the program is set. We have decided that we can stick it out longer if we want, but if we continue to have these discussions at a serious level that we have been, that we can go at any time. One of the signs the universe has given us lately is a video we saw online (thanks Claire!). It speaks to us because there are so many reasons that we can come up with to wait and plan more, and save more, and talk about more but really when you get down to it, we should just DO IT ANYWAY!
If you’re paralyzed by the voice in your head, It’s the standing still that should be scaring you instead. Go on and … do it anyway. Do it anyway.
check it out the video below:
The comments made on the previous post are wonderful and we thank those who give us feedback! We don’t really have a reason not to, except that we don’t want to give up the opportunity for saving more “goal fodder” as I call it. Otherwise known as money. That however has become less important, especially when work gets us down in the dumps.
Call it surrender, but you know that it’s a joke And the punchline is you were actually never in control But still, surrender anyway…
We want to leave on our own wishes with a feeling of preparedness and that we are looking forward to our new lives, not that we got pushed out by our old. We will continue to push forward, it’s getting close though…Very close! We have set a drop dead date of October 15, 2013 which is a year and a day from today. I think we have come to the conclusion that it can be any time between now and then! So watch out world, here we come!
We are nearing the year mark for the countdown to Puerto Rico. But lately we have been asking ourselves, “Can we make it a year…and do we want to”? As I mentioned before we are pretty well set up to move. We have a good savings. We have some income set up. We have the property paid for in Puerto Rico. Lately it just seems like we are READY! In late January Britton had a dream that he would leave work in 9 months…which is now. October. I told him then that he was one year off of the goal. But now I wonder if he had been on to something.
Everything is changing at both of our jobs. Britton is down to a team of two from five when he started and the additional work is a heavy burden. His on-call has gone from once every 5 weeks to every other week which is super stressful to him. At my work, we’ve been having delays with grant contracts. As I await the start date of the grant in which I do inspections, I have realized how much I really do enjoy being out of the office. Because of a delay in this grant, I’ve had to do much more office work, and I just don’t think I can live in the cubicle anymore! I have had a small taste of freedom and want it back! We are also getting a new division director and so there has been a lot of change in this season of change.
And what’s more, as the weather begins to turn cold we just keep asking ourselves, is it time? Is it time to make the leap to the unknown? To our own personalized paradise? Then come the doubts and excuses…should we be more prepared? We should save more. What if I wanted to come back? What if this is all just some crazy (early) mid life crisis? Will I regret this? Blah. Excuses not to move. Excuses not to grow. Excuses to be comfortable instead of hit in the head with LIFE!
I know this is a bit of a rant, but I just really felt like I needed to get it off my chest. What do you think? Are we crazy? Should we stay and be cautious or throw it to the wind and roam! Can we make it a year? Or should we?
