Wandering Money Pig - A journey of early retirement and FIRE (financial independence retire early)

  Encore Boston, MA Ever since my wife and I started to visit the famed city in the desert that is Las Vegas , we have been fascinated by all the glitz, glamour, and beauty of upscale casino resorts there.  Those resorts include iconic places like Bellagio, Aria, Venetian , and Wynn , to name just a few. The name Steve Wynn is closely tied to the beginning of Las Vegas’ golden age, as his twin creations, the Bellagio in Las Vegas (1998), as well as his lesser known sister property, Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Mississippi (1999) set forth the the upscale casino resort building boom of the last 20 years.  Even to this day, the Bellagio and even the Beau Rivage stand the test of time as the standard for casino resort hotels in their respective markets. We had visited Wynn Las Vegas, the Bellagio , and the Beau Rivage on several occasions, and we came away with the thought his creations really stand out compared to others in the industry for their upscale touches like beautif...

  Growing up in New York City, Cape Cod always seemed like a place so far away.  Popularized by famous novels like Moby Dick (set in Nantucket/New Bedford) and also by it being the playground of the rich & the famous ( Martha’s Vinyard ), it was a place that begged to be explored and also admired from afar. Although my wife and I got a glimpse of Cape Cod some 20+ years ago (Plymouth), we always wanted to see more of the area for as long as we can remember.  That chance finally came, when we managed to get a month long Airbnb rental in a sleepy fishing town called Fairhaven , just 30 minutes from Cape Cod. We finally got to enjoy a summer (well, a month actually) in the famous Cape Cod area, with its cool breezy evenings, and bright sunny days, making it ideal for exploring the Cape.  Using Fairhaven as our home base, we spent many of those sunny days exploring different destinations, two of which we explored on a single trip. The two destinations we explored ...

  Plymouth Rock, Plymouth, Massachusetts  Henry David Thoreau:  “A man may stand there and put all America behind…” My first introduction to the Cape Cod area of Massachusetts started just about a year after my family immigrated to the United States.  I was then an impressionable 10 year old, and a friend of the family took myself and my brother on a 2 nights/3 days trip to Boston, Plymouth,  and Cape Cod . The reason why he did that was to sort of pay us back for helping him out with his outside flea market stall in Brooklyn, NY .  We did sales and kept a watch over the stall for several days. We didn’t expect that kind of reward for our few days worth of work, so we were both befuddled but super excited.  I mean, it wasn’t like he didn’t pay us for those few days of labor. Anyway, long story short, my brother and I were whisked away, traveling, for us at the time, practically first class.  We stayed at a nice downtown hotel in Boston, and we g...