Another Blind Date

Last week we needed a break from moving details, packing, budgeting, travel plans etc, so I took Brandon on a blind date to get away for the day. 

Brandon about to discover that we're going to try sandboarding at Warren Dunes State Park

Getting ready to sandboard for the first time

A sandboarding natural

Naturally...

Not as much of a natural

But, I eventually get the hang of it

All the way to the bottom 

Alas there is no lift, so we have to climb all the way back up to do it again

And again!

When we need a break...

We are entertained by a very impressive wind glider

And a paraglider trying to get off the ground

Second stop of the blind date is Tapistry Brewing in Bridgman, MI

We ordered a flight and the bartender gave us two free samples so we could try all the beers on tap!

Third and final stop the Silver Beach Carousel in St Joseph, MI

Brandon picked a raptor to ride

I wanted a giraffe, but they never go up and down on the carousel so I settled for a zebra

To Brandon's delight we stumbled upon some dolphins at the beach! 

Another successful blind date completed! 

EcoATM Experience

One of the many adventures that comes with this sabbatical is moving out of our apartment. As I have lived here for four years and Brandon for two years, we have accumulated some stuff that we now need to part with. In the process of sorting into Goodwill, recycle, dump, and save piles we discovered we had six old cellphones to dispose of. Yes. Six. I suppose it's not that surprising. When you buy a new one, you usually keep the old one for a back up. Then that new one eventually becomes the back up and either you're too lazy to figure out what to do with the old back up phone or you can't remember where you've stored it...and eventually...you end up with the shame of six old phones. 

I googled what to do with our old phones and came across information about ecoATM, a kiosk which allows you to scan and sell your old phones for cash. It turns out there's one located in the Rivertown Mall, so we decided to experiment with the machine and see if we could make enough money to spring for an Orange Julius and Auntie Anne's pretzel (both are weaknesses of Brandon's that can incidentally be used as bribery to shop for new jeans when needed). 

We found the ecoATM in the food court near the China Max and drew our cellphones out of our plastic bag feeling very sketchy. The ecoATM was not sketchy however. It required a driver's license and thumbprint scan to protect against any potential phone theft for immediate cash. We then followed the multiple prompts and worked thru the very lengthy process of selling our phones. And, the result?...drumroll, please...$0. Yep. Our phones were too old to have any market value. Not a surprise to us, because none were even smartphones. But, still a disappointment with the tantalizing possibility of an Orange Julius and pretzel waiting in the wings. The ecoATM allowed us to donate and recycle the phones and chargers, so we still felt like the experience was worthwhile. 

Since we had saved the environment from our six phones and saved the world several times in the past few days in Pandemic (our current favorite board game), we felt justified in still purchasing that Orange Julius and pretzel. We walked around the mall enjoying our well-earned prize, and we didn't even have to shop for jeans! 

Beach Days

As many of you know it'd be tough to find a better place to spend a summer than Michigan. One of the biggest reasons for that is because there is access to so many amazing beaches. So since one of our main goals this summer was to enjoy where we're at now, we have done our best to take full advantage of those beaches as often as possible. This post is about some of those beach days.

Catching some rays out at the Saugatuck Dune County Beach.

The start of the season is always a little slow. Lake Michigan takes a while to warm up. And this year was especially slow due to a cooler start to the summer. So swimming isn't as big a motivator for getting to the beach. We did it a few times in June and early July, but for the most part we just went to a lot of random spots and took some nice beach walks. But once mid-July hit and the days got warmer we started going a lot more frequently for full on beach days, complete with relaxing in the sun and playing in the water. 

For a good full on beach day our favorite beaches are on the south side of Holland/Saugatuck. We've found that picking beaches that require a good mile+ hike to get in (like Saugatuck Dune State and County Parks) or a lot of stairs (like Laketown Dune) helps thin out the crowds. Plus those first couple beaches have a lot of public access beach space. So we went to those two spots a lot. We also got lucky a couple times at Pier Cove Beach near Fennville because there the parking is very limited, so it keeps the beach less busy. So if you can get a spot, you're golden. 

The north side of Holland also has some good beaches too, but the two main ones, Holland State Park and Tunnel Park, just get very busy, especially on the weekend. So we just don't go there as often. We did have one nice beach day at Holland State Park since we were there on a Sunday evening anyway for a church potluck. But on that occasion we were also able to ride our bikes in, which helped us bypass some of the chaos. The rest of the north side beaches are just access points at the ends of certain roads for the neighborhood. So the parking and the beach space is limited. We mainly use those spots for sunset beach walks, which we can do since beach walkers are allowed on even the private beaches. 

This year we had three main activities we would do on our beach days. The first was to read a book, or I should say Katie would read to me. We started going through some of Katie's favorite Agatha Christie books mid summer, so when laying out on the beach it became the perfect time for her to read to me. 

Second, we played with our Waboba ball. Don't worry, I wouldn't know what that is if I didn't have one. It was gift Katie's sister gave to me last year that has paid off with tons of use. Basically it's a ball that when thrown right can skip on the water. So basically it gets used as a more entertaining form of catch because its hard to predict/master exactly where it's going to go when you throw it. This comes in handy for both just a beach day to ourselves as well as when we have other friends along with us. 

A Waboba Ball, hours of fun guaranteed.

The third and our most favorite of activities is wave jumping. I mentioned in my blog post about going to the U.P. how we got to play in the waves for the first time this summer up there. Well since we got back we've had some pretty great days down here. It's hard to describe why it's so fun. It's just such a rush of excitement over and over. Nothing quite beats playing in the waves. Below are some pictures I took on one of our most recent wave-jumping outings. 

A wave coming crashing in.

Me with a wave coming at me

The two of us out in the choppy waters.

Katie about to catch the wave.

Katie jumping through a wave.

Last thing I'll mention about our beach days is our friends. I'm pretty sure the beach would get old or not as exciting if we didn't have people we could share our experiences with. That's not to say we didn't have some really good beach days to ourselves. But with our friends there, fun/silly things happen like in the bonus photo I posted below. I'm a little sad I didn't do a better job snapping more pictures of the various friends/groups we had out with us throughout the summer. But to all who took the time to join us... Thank You! You make our lives extra special. 

Bonus Picture: Katie getting rock therapy/
getting turned into a rocky skeleton.

A Review of Footgolf

After hearing about a new activity called footgolf, Brandon and I knew we wanted to try it at one of the local golf courses. It's pretty much the same rules as golf, trying to get from the tee box to the flag in the least amount of strokes, but you kick a soccer ball instead of dealing with clubs and trying to find that perfect and elusive swing. Although, a perfect soccer kick can be pretty elusive as well...

Maple Hill in Grandville is the only golf course that offers footgolf that we found in the area, so we headed over there. They offer it Sunday and Monday evenings, likely because those aren't as popular times for real golfers to tee off. You show up with your own soccer ball, though if you don't have one they do rent them out, and pay for 9 holes, 18 holes, or 2 hrs of unlimited play. We paid for 18 holes, but quickly kicked through them and the manager was kind enough to let us continue for 2 hrs and pay the difference when we were done. We would definitely recommend the 2 hr play time. It gives you a chance to get through 36 holes (so you can pretend the first 18 was just "practice"), is a better value, gives you more time to hangout with fellow players, and makes the drive more worthwhile. 

There were two footgolf courses set up, an intermediate and advanced. We started with the intermediate, because we were new to the game and because the Aquinas College soccer team was starting the advanced course. I am new to soccer, much less footgolf, and did not want them following me and seeing all my blunders. I didn't need to worry though. As we played, I heard them despairing over their shots as well. 

The course turned out to be different than we expected. We had assumed we'd just be kicking down a normal fairway following the normal path of a golfer. Instead, the distance from "tee" to flag was shorter, ranging from 39 to 215 yards, usually crossed a couple fairways width-wise rather than using the length of just one, and was chosen to highlight the topography of the land. The manager explained that the focus was on kicking skill and reading the course topography rather than distance, because kicking a ball straight down a long fairway would get boring quickly. This was nice for me as I don't have a very strong or long kick. Not that I have a ton of kicking skill either, but I definitely improved as we played. And, thankfully, the topography did not include water traps! 

The courses filled up as the evening progressed, but play moved well and we never had to wait for a group in front of us or felt like we were holding others up. The manager was also super accommodating and friendly, driving around in a golf cart and checking up on us and each group several times to answer any questions and gather feedback. 

So, how did we do? Brandon did infuriatingly well. He's always beats me in anything sport related. Grrrr. So, I feel justified in saying "infuriatingly". But, really he just has skillz and years of well earned soccer experience to fall back on. It is a small comfort that I can at least beat him in Scrabble any day. But, once I made it my goal to just try to be within one kick of Brandon for each hole (a fair handicap I believe), I was able to better contain my frustration and have a ton of fun. He impressively finished the advanced course only 4 kicks above par. If you let me have my handicap (please be merciful and do), I was only two kicks behind him. 

So, what's the verdict? 

1) It was just Brandon and I playing, so we definitely want to go back again and experience it with a group of friends. 

2) The manager was awesome and definitely a selling point to go back. 

3) Once we've had the group experience, we may not need to go back again, because we could just make up our own course. Our own course may not be as fancy and professional (think a park with tree traps and cone markers), but it would save some money and present its own fun! 

Gitche Gumee

A couple weeks ago Katie and I made our way up to the U.P. to spend some time with my family at a family camp called Gitche Gumee Bible Camp. We had a great week. We were very active and did a lot of fun stuff. So much so that Katie wrote a separate blog post just about our climbing adventures in the U.P. which you can find by clicking here if you like. I'll go over the rest of our adventures in this post. 

The main purpose of this trip was to hang out with mi familia.
A pretty cool lookin bunch.

The first stop on our trip was to visit Katie's parents who had been camping all week up near Rogers City at Hoeft State Park. We left on a Friday so that we could visit with them for the evening, crash on their campsite, and make our trip the next day just that much shorter. While there I got to experience my first hobo pie where you stuff a bunch of ingredients between two pieces of bread and cook them in these metal clamp things over a campfire. Their advisement of sticking with pizza ingredients was right on because my hobo pies were delicious. And then after stuffing ourselves with dinner we drove into Roger City and stuffed our selves even fuller with ice cream. Totally worth it though. That night we were originally planning on setting up our tent, but with rain as a possibility we decided it best to just sleep in their van since we'd be needing our tent the rest of the week and didn't want it getting messy or smelly. Plus it helped me sell Katie on how cool it'd be to have a car we could easily camp out of the back of. Win Win!

The next day we left bright and early so that on the way up to Gitche Gumee we could stop in Houghton to hang out with Katie's brother. He recently moved up to that area for work, so it worked out perfect to see him on a few occasions while we were in the area. While hanging out with him we got to see his place, hike around and explore McLain State park, and explore downtown Houghton a bit. We tried out The Library Restaurant and Brew Pub which ended up being really good, both food and beer wise. And we also made a stop at Keweenaw Brewing Company. Both places we all split a flight. 

Katie and her brother resting after
adventuring out on the rocky pier at
McLain State Park

We eventually made our way up to Eagle River to meet up with my family and figure out the whole housing/camping situation. The cabin my family was staying in could technically fit us all, but it seemed like it would make life a lot more pleasant if we weren't all on top of each other all week. So we chose to camp all week, but luckily instead of having to stay over in the normal campground area we just set our tent up outside the cabin which made it easier to hangout with my family all week. We eventually had to move inside later in the week, but I'll get to that later.

The format of the rest of the week was basically as follows: meals 3 times a day (which makes it feel like you are always eating), 2 chapel services that you're encouraged to attend "most" of, afternoons free to do whatever your heart contents, and finish off the night with the "canteen" opening for snacks and ice cream. The food wasn't quite as good as I remembered it being the past, but it was still good for camp food. The services were better than I remember. Maybe it's a sign I'm getting old. But I found it at least easier to stay awake. Plus every week they have two speakers that trade off speaking, a missionary (or missionary family) and one Bible teacher, so that adds a bit a variety to the week as well.

As for activities, on the first day, Sunday, Katie's brother came up to the camp for a bit. We kicked around a soccer ball since he had never played with Katie before given this was a new interest of hers. We eventually got a spirited game of 3 on 3 after a few kids came over wanting to play. And then to cool off we spent some time on the beach with my family and swam/played catch with my cool water-skipping-ball in Lake Superior.

Monday was one of the best days we had because that afternoon we ventured off to a place called the Devil's Wash Tub to do some cliff jumping. It's a place I always had heard about, but never had found. But luckily this year with the help of some google searches, we managed to find it. For those that want to know it's across the street from the Dapple Gray B&B just about 2 miles before Copper Harbor on 26.  It ended up being a really cool spot where you can jump off a short cliff on one side of this rocky bridge structure, swim underneath through a tunnel to where you could touch on the other side, and then climb back up to do it again. It was awesome. We also did a little bouldering (aka climbing) which Katie talks about in her post.

I took the first jump

Katie jumped too, of course :)

After all our cliff jumping we then continued up to Copper Harbor to try out Brickside Brewery. It was an entertaining place to visit. It's a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, which works well for that area cuz they don't need to be big or anything. But their beer was really good. We got a flight and quickly found a couple of favorites. We got to chat with the barkeep and one of the owners/head brewer. It was clear they just really like making beer. We laughed at overhearing a conversation the brewmaster had with another patron who happened to own a restaurant in Houghton and the brewmaster seemed kind of indifferent about taking on more business. He seemed content with just keeping up w/ what they're already doing. Good for them I guess. Hopefully they stay open so we can visit again next time cuz like I said, they make some good beer.

We ended our afternoon adventure with driving down to Cliff Drive to hike around a bit based on a climbing guide we had with the hopes of finding some spots to climb later in the week. But we really didn't find much. It was a little bit of a damper to what seemed like a perfect afternoon. But the evening turned better again. While away my family made plans to skip the chapel service after dinner and have some more family beach time. So we joined them and again got to watch my niece and nephews try to dam up the creek flowing into Lake Superior and got to play more ball-skip-catch with my family. My brother and I threw the ball around till both our arms were sore, and then we both tried switching and throwing lefty. Good times were had indeed.

My niece and nephews trying to dam up the creek.

Tuesday's afternoon activity was the whole family driving up past Copper Harbor to a place called Horseshoe Bay where there were a lot of rocks and boulders in the water we could swim to and play on. The drive takes you on a few miles of old dirt logging roads, so it took longer then we thought to get there. We had a pretty good time there. It is certainly a beautiful area. But for whatever reason the black flies were particularly bad there and water was on the chillier side. It was still worth it though to see my siblings' kids climb around on stuff and be adventurous. We have some definite potential climbers on our hands. 

Playing on some rocks in Horseshoe Bay

The pebble beach and some other rocks we all climbed around on.

We had hoped there would be enough time to stop at the Devils Washtub with my family on the way back, but sadly there wasn't enough time for everyone to go since nothing is fast with kids. So it was just Katie and I who made a quick stop again since we could be in and out in 15 minutes. We even brought my mom along to watch us take a few jumps. I think she was happy we were enjoying ourselves, but some adventures involving heights are best appreciated by her from afar or by pictures. But I was proud of her adventurous spirit. 

Later that evening Katie and I went back down to the camp beach because we had heard they had kayaks we could use. Good thing we did because it was the last evening of a semi-calm kayakable lake. That night the weather changed and from that night on we had a pretty steady strong wind which caused the lake to get really wavy, which may be fun for playing in (which we did later that week), but not so good for kayaking or cliff jumping. And as it turns out, also not so good for camping seeing as that night we got next no sleep with our tent shaking like crazy. And eventually the wind tore a hole in our tent, possibly from some debris that got picked up. We decided it best to sleep the remaining two nights in the living room of the cabin. 

Wednesday afternoon Katie and I climbed, so that is again covered in Katie's post. But since the lake got super wavy, we of course needed to make time to play. Luckily my brother felt the same way. So before bedtime we went down to the lake and Katie, myself, my brother, and his kids went wave jumping. It was awesome. I was super impressed with my oldest nephew. The waves were way taller then he was, but he didn't back down. Again, some super awesome times were had.

Playing in the waves

Thursday was our last full day of camp. We spent the afternoon hiking around and exploring this place down the road from the camp called Jacob's Falls with the whole family. I've explored the falls a bunch of times before, but this time we came in from the backside of the falls by way of a some trails that some monks in the area have developed. It was a beautiful hike. And the falls were pretty too. Also fun to play in. Afterwards we made another quick stop off at the beach since it was still windy and played in the waves some more.

Climbing around on Jacob's Falls.

And that was our week at camp. We left after breakfast on Friday and went climbing near Baraga, MI at Silver Mountain. Afterwards it timed out perfect to backtrack a bit to Houghton and hangout with Katie's brother one more time before heading home. We went out to eat again, crashed at his place, and continued home the next day. We made one more stop in Lansing, MI. Yes, it was a bit out of the way, but there they have Panchero's, the best burrito place ever. So we met a friend there and afterwards went to the Saturday night service of Riverview Church. We really miss being able to go to that church regularly given that we live in Holland. So whenever we're in the area we make a point to go. And as usual both the music and sermon were amazing. If you are in the Lansing area and have never been, you should seriously check it out! So for us it was lovely way to end our week-long trip. 

The last thing I'll mention about our activities was that we played a lot of this board game called Pandemic. It's a game Katie and I got into playing with friends a few months before, and so we requested it as a birthday present. My mom waited until camp to give it to us, which worked out perfect because then we got to introduce it to our whole family. We played it quite a bit to fill time between things and in the evening before bed. The premise of the game is that you work as a team to cure/prevent the spread of disease across the world. Sadly most of the time game won... aka, everyone in the world died. But on a couple of occasions we managed to save humanity... You're welcome everyone.

So as you can probably tell, overall we had a really great week. It was especially great to see family. The kids were much better behaved than we thought they'd be, so that was a blessing. And we had amazing weather. Perhaps even the best weather I've ever had there. And weather impacts a lot at camp since in bad weather you're very limited in your choice of activities. I've had to remind Katie to keep her expectations still low if we go again in future years cuz I'm not sure it'll ever be that good again. I think our only complaint is we could have really used some more sleep. For various reasons, we just did not sleep well. But we survived. 

And that was our week at Gitche Gumee. We are very thankful we were able to go the whole week, which we might not have been able to do had we not been on sabbatical. It's really nice when we can use some of this extra time off to spend it with family. And we're very much looking forward to being able to spend even more time with them and others over this next year. 

I hope you enjoyed following along on our adventure up to the U.P., eh! Until next time. Cheers

How to do a UP rock climbing trip

In July, Brandon and I were in the UP for a week to spend time with family at Gitche Gumee Bible Camp. Brandon had heard of some rock climbing in the Keweenaw Peninsula near the camp and had even tried to find it once without success. I, of course, was intrigued and we decided to re-explore the area. 

With a little online research, I quickly found that UP climbing is not well documented at all. Thankfully, I also discovered that Down Wind Sports in Houghton had unofficial UP climbing information available at the store. Before we ventured deeper into the Keweenaw we stopped in. The guys working there were enthusiastic and helpful. They told us about some new sport climbing at Silver Mountain in Baraga and were able to print us some instructions. Baraga is not in the Keweenaw, but it was on the way home if we wanted to check it out. We also secured a more descriptive PDF of the climbing on Cliff Drive in the Keweenaw that Brandon had previously tried to find. We were warned that Cliff Drive was more adventure-type climbing that was poorly marked and required top belaying. But, armed with the paper copies and PDF we felt confident and excited about our climbing prospects. 

Before checking out these climbing areas we stumbled across some unofficial climbing at Devil's Washtub near Copper Harbor. This is an awesome roadside cliff jumping area complete with a tunnel to swim through after the jump. The tunnel rock also looked prime for bouldering, so Brandon and I had to try it out. I even had some old climbing shoes that I didn't mind subjecting to the water. Climbing over water is fun! If you fall off, you don't have to worry about hard ground beneath...you just get a splash! 

Brandon climbing the inside edge of the tunnel

Working on a similar section

Brandon eventually defeated this boulder and climbed all the way over the top! 

Climbing the outside portion of the tunnel

After our spontaneous bouldering at Devil's Washtub we went to Cliff Drive to scope out climbing for the next day. We were not successful. Our excitement about the PDF instructions quickly turned to disappointment. We managed to follow the first few directions (we think), but it became hazy quickly with instructions to follow seasonal stream beds (there were multiple) or climb over boulders (once again, multiple). Definitely not like the Red River Gorge in Kentucky where we're used to mapped out directions, labeled routes, and many fellow climbers. This place was deserted other than a bunch of metal detecting junkies searching for treasure among old mining pilings.  

But we didn't give up. The next day we went back and decided to just forge our way through the brush and rubble up to the top of the cliff. We did and managed to intersect with what looked like some legitimate trails. We still had no idea where the climbing routes noted in the PDF were. The area was, as we were warned, more setup for adventure climbing where you just make up what you want and hope it works out. So, we got into the adventure climbing spirit, built our own anchor (three actually, due to my nervous insistence), belayed one us down from the top (me first), and hoped that we could climb back up. Needless to say finding a good spot was among the more difficult tasks. But we did it and had a lot of fun along the way. 

Beautiful view from the top of the cliff where we could also see our car parked on Cliff Drive. We climbed a few feet north of that pine tree on the arete. 

Brandon looking over the edge of the cliff trying to see if this is a good place for us to climb

Preparing for a climb. You can somewhat see our set-up.

If you're interested in our set-up, we had three anchors at the top. We chose this location because it looked promising and because we found a sport climb bolt there. Our anchors were the base of an old tree, a thick root, and the sport climb bolt. We had brought webbing along which we ran through our anchors and into locking carabiners we usually use for cleaning sport routes. Our rope then went through the locking carabiners between the belayer and climber. The belayer was clipped into the sport bolt with a clip and several slings we looped together. We did not want to chance the belayer falling if the climber took an large unexpected fall. It took a while to set up, but feeling safe makes for more fun climbing in my opinion. We should probably try to live to tell our rock climbing stories. 

We then lowered the climber over the edge. Because we were not able to fully view the rock face before the climb, we lowered slowly. The climber viewed the rock face and determined if it was within our skill level. If it was, we lowered more. If it was questionable, we did a small trial climb up that section and then re-lowered when the trial was successful. We ended up climbing three routes that we made up, a 45 foot arete, 50 foot slab, and 80 foot chimney. We were able to stay in one location at the top by making minimal adjustments to rope position as needed. 

When we were done we carefully cleaned up all our gear and re-traced our steps down the steep, cliff-side "trail" without injury, feeling adventurous and accomplished.

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When camp was done for the week, we drove to Baraga to check out the sport climbing at Silver Mountain. I have to admit that I was sleep-deprived, irritable, and not enthused about this adventure, but Brandon soldiered forward and eventually turned my attitude around as he is so cunningly able to do. 

Amusingly, I had been to Silver Mountain at least three times before on a UP trip I took annually with some physical therapy friends when I was in grad school. I had no idea there was rock climbing there, but I also wasn't a climber at the time. Our drive to Silver Mountain was nostalgic for me. The nearby roads, parking area, and mountain were familiarly empty of people. Now, instead of hiking up the mountain I would climb it. 

As aforementioned, we had some printouts detailing the Silver Mountain climbing area. We quickly found some well-worn trails to the left that made it to the base of the mountain and some sport bolts. The issue was now determining the grade of the sport routes, so we could choose an appropriate one to climb. The information we had was outdated as several additional sport routes seemed to have been added to the area. This was more exciting than frustrating, because additional sport climbing routes meant more potential for us to tap, and we were now used to the lack of information surrounding UP rock climbing. 

The basalt cliffs of Silver Mountain have beautiful rainbow roofs

We eventually settled on a sport route that was not listed, but looked very do-able and about 60 feet tall. I led the route easily with no falls or takes. Brandon then followed suit and cleaned the route as well. We rated it a 5.7 or 5.8-, so it was a good warm-up for us. 

Leading what we guessed was a 5.7 or 5.8-

We then explored further to the left on the cliff and climbed what we determined after to be a 100 foot route called Between a Block and a Hard Place and rated 5.10b. Brandon led it admirably with a few challenges along the way. I then top roped it with some beta from him through a particularly challenging part where the minimal hand holds required reliance on the feet and slab. 

Me near the top of Between a Block and a Hard Place

In the end, we were quite proud of ourselves for having correctly judged the difficulty and successfully climbed the routes we chose. It was definitely a place we want to return to explore more sport climbing. 

Kentucky is definitely better established climbing and a lesser drive at 7 hours rather than the 10 hours to the UP. But, if you're in the area, the beautiful solitude and adventurousness of UP climbing is not to be missed! 

Health Insurance

Health insurance is a rather mundane topic, but it is important to planning a sabbatical. And, after much confusion, consultation, and deliberation, I am happy to say that we do have insurance. If you're bored already, I wouldn't recommend continuing to read. Just stop now. You can be happy for us that we have insurance and move on to more fun pursuits. I'm just going to go over the dull details below. You've been warned. 

We have been blessed in receiving awesome health care coverage thru Brandon's workplace. Thankfully we were able to retain that coverage thru July 31 by using up Brandon's PTO and taking advantage of a company policy that provides insurance for the full month as long as you've worked at least one day of that month (thank you PTO). 

After July 31, we would receive a COBRA notice and be able to take that as our insurance. But, here's where your company providing awesome insurance is a double-edged sword. Awesome coverage = huge cost. And, that huge cost we would now be solely responsible for. So, taking COBRA was not going to fit into our sabbatical budget and we needed to look into other options. 

Many people have asked us whether we will find coverage in the Health Insurance Marketplace thru Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act. Well, we looked into that and we are not eligible. We do not fall under a Qualifying Life Event to get insurance immediately following July 31 because we are eligible for COBRA. So, we would have to wait for Open Enrollment on November 1 and take the expensive COBRA in the meantime. Not a good option for us. 

So, we scoured the internet and read some blogs for other healthcare options. In doing so, we discovered some expat plans. These seemed valuable on the outset with our mixture of international and domestic travel for the year. However, we discovered the stateside coverage was not very good, and the plan did not fall under the Affordable Care Act requirements resulting in a fine. It did not seem wise to have to pay both an insurance premium and the fine. 

We were back to square one with seemingly millions of private insurance options to sift through. A coworker of mine suggested talking to a local insurance agent, which turned out to be immensely helpful. The agent helped us quickly navigate the options. Together we determined that the cheapest course of action was to purchase a private domestic insurance plan approved by the Affordable Care Act and a separate international travel insurance plan. 

First, we had to decide if we wanted a HMO or PPO plan. A PPO plan was better for us since we would be traveling all over the country throughout the year and finding doctors within a limiting HMO network could be a problem.  

Then, we had to decide what we wanted to pay for premiums versus deductibles. That was easy. We are young (at least I am...Brandon has crept on to 30 now!) and healthy. We wanted the cheapest premiums (though this usually means a high deductible), which resulted in a HSA. 

Finally, for insurance carriers, the main choices were Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) or Priority Health. We preferred BCBS because its national recognition would streamline the paperwork behind any care we would need in our travels throughout the country, whereas Priority Health is more West Michigan based and lesser known. 

We were pleased to discover that BCBS' HSA was cheaper than Priority Health's. Decision made. As of August 1, we now have a BCBS HSA! 

It was all a very excruciatingly adult experience. If you're bored by now, I'm not surprised. I also have no sympathy. I warned you! 

After all that you may ask, why didn't you just go without insurance and pay the fine? You are young and healthy, aren't you? Well, yes, but we are also very active with rock climbing, snowboarding, trampolining, cliff jumping, and who knows what other wild pursuits, and we (aka I) are accident prone with coffee tables (they just jump right out in front of me... seriously). Insurance is...well, insurance against the unknowns in life. We don't want to stop our sabbatical early and drown in healthcare debt. 

These activities are also why we will invest in some travel insurance. This insurance is bare bones providing assistance and coverage of just emergency medical expenses, emergency medical evacuation, repatriation of remains, or accidental death and dismemberment. These are not at all common occurrences, so the plans are super cheap...we're talking like only three to four dollars per day per person. God forbid we would actually need to use the insurance, but if we did, those few dollars a day would save us hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

We haven't purchased travel insurance yet, but it seems fairly easy. We can buy it right before we go abroad, make sure it covers the sports we want to do, and pay only for the days that we are traveling internationally. There are a bunch of companies to choose from, and when we decide on one we'll let you know. 

So, if you're not sleeping yet, those are the logistics of our health insurance plan. Now back to the fun parts of taking a sabbatical!