8 days ago the odometer in my car flipped-over to 4,000 miles. It did so 65 days after flipping-over to 3,000 miles. And that happened 36 days after flipping-over to 2,000 miles. And that happened 62 days after flipping-over to 1,000 miles. And that happened 115 days after I bought my car and drove it home from the dealership.
I’ll soon embark on about a 460 to 480 mile road-trip over the course of just 4 days, so flipping-over to 5,000 miles won’t take long at all. It definitely won’t take more than 60 days to do so. It’ll probably happen before the end of June.
As I did with my Spring Break 2021 Road-Trip in February I’ll be posting all about my upcoming road-trip during consecutive Thursdays here on my blog starting on June 10TH (after I return).
All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries
Regular readers of my blog know that I don’t Instagram. I Flickr. I know that over a billion people worldwide are registered users on Instagram, and that it’s probably the 2ND most popular app / web site known to mankind (2ND to Facebook which owns Instagram). I never got into Instagram. I’ve never created an account. I don’t even know what it looks like. I ignore all Instagram links. I’m probably missing some fun stuff, but oh well. I’m a Flickr(er).
Flickr was created long before Instagram – way back in 2004. Yahoo ran it for about a dozen years. I’ve been a registered user since April 2011, and I’ve been a paying (“PRO”) member for many years now. I like Flickr. I like it a lot. It’s my favorite social media app / web site (after WordPress of course). It’s where I store all of my photos online – most of them (88%) for public viewing.
I generally average about 250 to 300 uploaded photos per year. But I don’t just upload photos. I do research on my photos and write captions for each of them. I often learn more about what I took a picture of weeks and months later. It’s like electronic photo-booking. Each photo is individually enhanced (brightened, straightened, etc.), uploaded, and captioned into one of my albums on Flickr based on location or subject matter.
This past week I finally finished uploading and captioning all of my photos from my recent Spring Break road-trip this past February. You may have seen some of them by glancing down near the bottom of this page where the last 6 added to my Flickr Photostream are displayed.
Many of my Spring Break road-trip photos can be viewed on my Tampa Bay Region album. There are 136 photos and 1 video (of a sunset) within that album from 2014 on, and it showcases my best vacation photos from the Tampa Bay region of Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota, and Hardee Counties. I spent a day in Hardee County on my recent road-trip, so the final 12 photos of that album are from that day.
In the future I may showcase a different Flickr album about once a month here on my blog – maybe on the last Thursday of every month.
I’ve also got another road-trip vacation planned, so one of my Flickr albums will soon be updated with all-new photos.
All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries
If all goes right I plan to retire from U.S. Federal Civil Service in less than 3 years from now. By that time I will have served for over 38½ years (military and civilian time combined). I’m ready to retire.
I have multiple plans on staying busy on a day-to-day basis in the next part of my life. They include full-time ministry with a local church, working indoors or outdoors at a Florida State Park, working as a docent at a local museum, and if that’s not enough then perhaps working at Publix – where shopping is a pleasure. #LOL
I also want to travel more. For many years I’ve talked about (and even blogged about) taking a 100-day / 10,000-mile road-trip completely around the circumference of the continental United States (clockwise) averaging about 100 miles per day, and mostly driving along the roads less traveled – our old U.S. highways. I don’t really talk about doing that anymore. I don’t mind driving around and exploring the backroads of Florida (and maybe even nearby states like Alabama and Georgia), but I can’t really see myself driving all around the country. Driving is less fun now than it used to be. As I get older the aches and pains while driving increase. I also experience anxiety attacks while driving. Also – most other drivers annoy me substantially.
I’ve recently been eyeing (and doing research on) a new way to see America after I retire – by rail and coach. A couple of years before my Dad passed away from Lou Gehrig’s Disease in 2010 he was planning one final family trip for the 5 of us (Himself, Mom, Brother, Sister-In-Law, & I). In fact he planned it all and even booked the nearly 2-week trip. It was a combination train and bus tour of several of our great National Parks out west (in the Rocky Mountains). I think the tour commenced in Bozeman Montana and concluded on the Las Vegas Strip. I was really excited about the trip. Unfortunately my Dad soon canceled the trip when his conditions deteriorated further from the disease.
(Side Note: Tomorrow – the 23RD of April – would have been my Mom and Dad’s 55TH wedding anniversary.)
In memory of my Dad I really want to take that trip that he wanted to go on with his family – perhaps not necessarily that same exact trip via that same exact travel agency, but a similar one to it. I know that they are quite expensive. I saw one for $4,320 per person for 14 days, and that includes all hotel accommodations, and a meal a day. $4,320 probably means well over $5,000 (possibly even closer to $6,000) with taxes, fees, and other charges included. I have at least a couple of years to do extensive research and price comparisons for this trip of a lifetime.
For the past 30 years I’ve seen and experienced the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Pacific via 22 cruises (138 nights at sea). I actually have my 23RD cruise booked. As I retire from my career on land I may very well retire from my vacations at sea. As the title of this blog post states – I want to see America after I retire.
All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries
A few days ago (this past Monday) I did not get in my car and drive it for the first time in over 5 weeks. I ended a 37-day streak of driving that started on Saturday March 06TH and ended on Sunday April 11TH. During those 37 days I drove 609 miles – an average of about 16½ miles per day. The 37 days surpassed a 28-day streak this past November and December. It’s the longest streak since a 41-day streak in January and February 2020 just before the start of the global pandemic.
How do I know all of this ? I record my odometer’s starting and ending mileage each day on an Excel spreadsheet. I do it for fun. I’ve been doing it for over 6 years. I work with Excel spreadsheets all day long in my professional career, and I play with them and learn from them off-work at home on my computer. What I learn at home I apply at work. There’s very little time available at work to learn how to do something new on a spreadsheet, so I get smart at home. I have a bunch of unique spreadsheets that I use at home that keep track of the day-to-day operations of my life. I collect the data, and I analyze the data. I perfect the analysis expertise as well – because – that’s also part of my professional career. I analyze historical data in order to make wise and efficient financial decisions to successfully support the mission. I’ve been an Analyst for the USAF for the past 36 years.
Oh – one last thing – you know that music chart that I present every Monday here on my blog ? It’s been fueled by an Excel spreadsheet for the past 25½ years !
All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries
