Hello everybody! We just got home from a little over a year on the road, working in both OR and CA. As many of you know, our most recent contract was in Petaluma, CA- which is about an hour north of San Francisco. This blog post is mostly going to be about our road trip…
Author: Patrick McCarty
Silverthorne Colorado Ski Trip
Alrighty! It’s been quite a while since the last post. As many of you may already know, Erin and I are going to get married and go on an epic trip to east Africa when we get back to PA. Our contracts here in Petaluma, CA end on March 15th. Afterwards, we are going to…
Thanksgiving at Lake Tahoe
Merry almost Christmas! Many of you will recognize Lake Tahoe from our previous posts. It’s one of my favorite spots. Since we had a long weekend over Thanksgiving we decided to take a trip! Thankfully it is the shoulder season this time of year, between the absolutely mobbed summertime and the winter ski season. We…
A Long Weekend in Mendocino
Welp, it’s been about 2 months since we started our jobs here in Petaluma, CA. We signed an extension this past week, putting us here until mid March. A few weeks back Erin and I had a long weekend, so I planned a trip to a place called Mendocino. Mendo, as it is sometimes referred…
Safeway Vs. Sprouts: Where should you shop?
In an interesting turn of events, our post on Sprouts vs Whole foods recently went viral. If you search “whole foods vs sprouts prices”, our website will likely be the top result. Google customizes everyone’s results, but, on average, our blog post will be within the top 3 results for almost anything to do with…
Backpacking Brokentop Mountain
Since we were unable to extend our contracts in Portland, we decided to take 2 weeks off in order to enjoy summer in the PNW before moving. For our first adventure, we went to Central Oregon for a 3 day backpacking trip in the mountains. I chose a loop trail that consisted of hiking through…
The Parents Visit Portland
As most of our readers probably already know by now: the parents have recently visited. I wrote this post weeks ago, but never edited it and added pictures. Better late than never! Erin’s Mother and Father visited, followed by my Mother. Each spent a week, and we even had a brief time all together. I…
Lem visits Portland!
My younger sibling, Lem, came to visit Erin and me last week! After working long and hard to finish up school at the University of Pennsylvania Lem is about to graduate! As a mini vacation prior to starting a service trip they came to visit us. Erin and I had completely forgotten that our anniversary…
How Expensive is Stuff in Antigua Guatemala?
So what’s the daily shopping/living experience in Antigua like? Right now, one dollar USD equals 7.85 Quetzales (the local currency). First of all, let’s address the elephant in the room. Antigua is the historical colonial capital, seat of European power, and a designated UNESCO heritage site. What this means is that Antigua is not representative…
Overnight Hiking Trip on an Active Guatemalan Volcano
This past weekend I did an overnight trek and climbed two volcanoes! Fuego is active, and spews volcanic rocks and ash every 15-20 minutes. Acatenengo is currently dormant, and is where Basecamp was located. The volcano on the left is Fuego (active) and the one on the right is Acatenengo (dormant) The trip started with…