Financial Independence Day Week Celebration

A few rude wake up calls have recently come our way.   One of Princess Muffins’ co-workers died in her sleep in her late 50’s.  It forced us to think: we’re not too far away from that.  She didn’t have time to “retire”, and spent the last of her time working her miserable job.  Our life goals have since shifted toward actually LIVING life, rather than spending said lives in analysis paralysis, planning and planning, waiting to die or retire, whichever comes first. Part of this living of life involves strategic use of various resources at our disposal while we’re “working” in order to have a far more pleasant existence. Historically, this has meant spending some quality time as a long weekend here or there, and creating an enterprise out of blogging about our travels and efforts to live a higher quality life while still somewhat working as “wage slaves”.

An Independent Holiday

Over the Independence Day holiday week, Princess Muffins and I finally took more than a long weekend worth of vacation. This has been a nearly yearly thing now since we went to Montana last year. This year, it was MY choice of where to go, and I thought it would be a great time to explore New England. Since we were going to use the Independence Day holiday as a jumpstart (as we both had the day off of work midweek!) to kick off the weekend, I thought it would be a great idea to check out the areas where the US of A got its start and bask in some of that Independence history. We love experiencing new places, their architecture, and walking around new towns to experience its unique flavor… and our trip worked out to be exactly that.

I also considered that since the average July temperatures in the Boston area have been between 66°F and 82°F, it would be a nice, cool place to visit and escape the steamy summer months that Florida usually provides. Well, you know what they say about good intentions… we landed during a heat wave. It wasn’t quite a record-breaking heat wave or anything, but at the time we landed, Boston was the proverbial “eye of the storm” of summer heat for the week, with a heat index in high 90’s. But, we’re from Florida, and as such, not at all strangers to braving the heat, so we stuck it out and made the best of it.

Each of the more interesting things we did will end up having a dedicated page with the details, but to start things off, here is the itinerary for the Happy Camper Holiday, with insights into how we made our frugal (or intentionally extravagant) purchasing decisions during the process.

Whirlwind Independence Day Travel Abbondanza!

July 3

• Arrive at airport – Departure delays due to weather on both sides
• While waiting Take-away Salad at the airport
• JetBlue to Boston (BOS)
• Pick up Rental Car
• Drive to Providence, RI
• Sleep at Sheraton Providence Downtown (quite an experience- booked through Hotels.com)

Most of our day was about airline travel.  I hadn’t flown JetBlue in quite some time, since I worked in Manhattan decades ago.  I had to reapply for JetBlue’s TrueBlue frequent flyer program, as my prior number was part of their old system long since phased out.  We picked JetBlue because of the timing of direct flights, plane and simple.   We picked Boston because that ended up having the cheapest direct flights in our destination area.  Weather delays on both sides pushed out our flight considerably.  This is one of the main reasons we try to fly direct out of Florida – summer afternoons are always stormy.  Since we were flying out on JetBlue, I didn’t have a Delta boarding pass to make use of my newfound SkyClub benefit from the platinum AmEx.  I ate before we left, but the little one came from work, and needed some dinner. Airports generally suck for vegetarian options, and so a generic salad from a generic eatery is what she was stuck with, as is so often the case.

July 4

• Get up late because of midnight hotel arrival
• Exercise at hotel facilities
• Pick up $1 Egg McMuffin on the way to Bristol w/McDonald’s app coupon
• Bristol Independence Day Parade (3 hours long!!)
• Hunt for Somewhere to Eat Lunch
  • Beehive Cafe — Closed
  • Sunset Cafe — Closed
  • Tong Phoon — YAY!!! (Didn’t take AmEx)
• On the way back to hotel, picked up salad stuff for dinner at the grocery
• Back to Hotel, checked out “Club” floor to see if good for fireworks, ate and passed out before fireworks

The Sheraton Providence Airport hotel was pretty nasty.  I’m going to do a full write up of everything we experienced, but after communicating our issues to the newly appointed manager, Bob Kenney, our entire stay was comped, and we have a gift certificate on the way to try them again in the future.  Our accommodations were selected based upon location, and the rates from Hotels.com were far superior to my corporate rate, so we booked through them using the Ebates portal for extra cash back.

McDonald’s is pushing hard to speed adoption of their new app.  To get it to the top downloads list, they’re putting a lot of decent coupon deals in play if you use their app.  One of those is the $1 sandwich.  Our only real option as vegetarians is the Egg McMuffin with no meat.  Since we were running late, we picked one up.

Parking at the Bristol Independence Day Parade was insane; streets were lined with cars for miles around the parade route.  When we finally made it to the parade, an hour late, we learned it had two more hours to go, and felt like we barely missed a thing.  Nothing we had researched had prepared us for the enormity of the event.   It was super hot that day.  The parade EMT’s were certainly earning their keep.  Paraders were passing out right and left.

Once it was over, we immediately hunted down something cold to drink.  Then we tried to experience the local vegetarian-friendly restaurants I had researched earlier, only to find nearly everyone had closed shop for the day.  We finally ate at Tong Phoon which was super yummy (especially as that was my first meal of the day). It had been an intense day, and we were worn out from all the walking in the heat.

July 5

• Exercised again in the hotel fitness center
• Check out of the hotel
• Late Breakfast at Denny’s
• Drive to Downtown Providence, RI
• Park at Packet Garage (Covered – Have to be back by 5pm!)
• Tour John Brown House
• Walk through Brown University courtyard
• Walk through Memorial Park
• Tour Rhode Island State Building
• Leave for Concord, NH
• Dinner @ Panera on the road
• Check in to Courtyard Marriott (booked at corporate rate)

Denny’s is one of my go-to restaurants while on the road.  They’re (generally) consistent in quality, cleanliness, and service (except for the one in Cocoa Beach), and have a few good vegetarian choices around the clock.  Even though I usually use the AARP 15% discount, I always check to see if there’s a better promotion running.  We used the hotel lobby printer (coupon MUST be printed) to crank out a 20% off coupon and had veggie omelets.

We headed to downtown Providence and parked in a shade-covered cash-only valet garage.  We could have parked in another garage about a block north, used the AmEx and saved a tip, but we didn’t know our way around town, and the narrow, hilly, one-way streets were mighty confusing to us non-locals.  We grabbed the first one we could find, really.  All of the parking prices seemed pretty crappy – $15 for the day.  From there we walked down Benefit Street to see the historical buildings, discovering the John Brown house.  We decided to audio tour (not free) the John Brown house, then hoofed it to the State Building for their hourly tour (free) just in time to get their last tour at 3pm.  We made it back before the 5pm closure of the parking area, and drove off to Concord, New Hampshire.

July 6

• Work out in hotel
• Breakfast at Windmill Family Restaurant
• Old North Graveyard
• Figure out how Concord, NH parking works
• New Hampshire Historical Society (Pick up Walking Tour booklet)
• Concord, NH Walking Tour
• Granite State Candy Shoppe
• Lunch
  • Willows – CLOSED! (despite door plainly saying should be open)
  • Lunch @ Constantly Pizza w/Entertainment coupon (50% off!)
• Some Farm thing – also closed (for the season)
• Canterbury Shaker Village (Despite guidebooks saying “Open until 5:30” was closed as of 4:30pm)
• Drive to Waitesfield, VT
• Pick up groceries on the road
• Check into 1824 House (direct, no discounts)

One of my favorite experiences when exploring a new area is to find the places slightly off the beaten path where the locals go.  This was the Windmill Family Restaurant.  It wasn’t “awesome” as dining experiences go, but the food was good and the prices were reasonable. Then we got our tourism on and hit the downtown circuit.

We started off at the northern end of Main St., walking around the Old North Graveyard, to see the tomb of New Hampshire’s only president, Franklin Pierce. There are quite a few ornate headstones and graves from the earliest part of US History to see.

July 7

• Breakfast @ 1824 House
• Mad Marathon Packet Pickup
• Farmer’s Market (picked up some Maple candy for kids)
• Drive to Waterbury, VT
• Ben & Jerry’s Tour
• “Tour” @ Cold Hollow Cider Mill (lame)
• Attempted Lunch @ Cold Hollow Cider Mill (Confusing and Not appealing)
• Lunch @ Maxi’s
• Reading and relaxing in the room
• Dinner @ Mint

 

July 8

• Mad Marathon
• Breakfast @ 1824 House (Peach scones & Tea!!)
• Drive back to BOS (A Terminal)
• Small Salad @ Lame Airport Restaurant (not their official name)
• Wait at gate w/Princess Muffins until her plane leaves
• Hang out in departure Sky Lounge until boarding time (I’m the one with the Platinum Amex as I travel constantly)
• Check out Sky Lounge at destination