#legit came across five or six of my posts before i gave up

[baskeigh-ball]

having a following in one of your favorite fandoms is kinda a double edged sword

[thelovelydreamer17]

The Lost Adventures - Teaser

Summary: Starting junior year in a new school halfway through the semester was already hard, but after you and your biology partner make an alarming discovery it was starting to look like a walk in the park.  

Relationships: Robert Downey Jr. x Daughter! Reader, Eventual Tom Holland x Reader (As in later in the series) 

Word Count: 1,932

Warnings: Slight mentions of anxiety

Prompt: “I’m sorry, you’re what now?”

A/N: Here is my part in @afictionaladventure16 2K Celebration Challenge! It is loosely inspired by their series Safe and Sound, one of my all-time favorite stories. I haven’t posted anything in a long time, so go easy on me, please! This is sort of a prologue/teaser for the storyline. I have a lot of ideas on where to take this, should anyone want to read it. I hope you enjoy and have a Happy New Year!

You paced back and forth in front of the couch, biting on the side of your thumb. Indio was supposed to be here five minutes ago, you only had so much time before Robert was done filming and would be coming back. The minutes were counting down as your worry went up. As you crawled into the fifteen-minute mark you decided that this was ridiculous. Grabbing your bag off the counter, you swung it over your shoulder and hurried to the trailer door to get the hell out of here before anyone came back. Just as you were about to open the door, it swung open nearly hitting you clear across the face. 

“Shit, Y/N.” Indie waited until you had moved back before pushing it open enough so that he could slip in. He set the small cardboard box he was holding down on the little kitchen table and kicked the door shut with his foot. 

“You’re late.” You started to pace again, not being able to sit still. 

“I know, sorry.” He opened the box and started to pull out what you were going to need. “Mom was home and it took longer than I thought to sneak it away from her and then Andre stopped me at the front gate to talk about school.” 

“He’s going to be here any minute.” You let him take the bag out of your hands, crossing you then freed arms against your stomach. “This is a horrible idea.” 

“It’s a great idea, and I got Holland to try and stall him. It should work for a few minutes. Now come sit down and please stop pacing. You’re making me anxious.” 

You looked at him incredulously, “I’m making you anxious? How are you not already anxious?” 

“Because I know this is a good idea and I’ve been wanting to do this from the start.” He sighed and stood up, halting your steps as he placed your hands on your shoulders, grounding you. “I can remember the few years after you were taken when he was so full of grief and worry that he would drink himself into a haze, and then when that wouldn’t work he would switch to drugs just to make it a little easier. It took him years to finally come to terms with what happened, and get clean, but I know that he still struggles with it. 

“Every year on our birthday we light a candle for you, mom always will make a small little cupcake and we light the candle and make a wish that even if you don’t come back to us, that you are happy and safe and loved.” You wiped your eyes with the heel of your hand, letting out a sniff. 

“If only that wish came true.” He wraps you up in a hug, the solid six inches he had over you making it feel like a warm blanket. 

“And that is why we are doing this, so that can be true.” Giving you a kiss on the top of the head he pushed you away, “Now, let’s get this show on the road. Holland won’t be able to keep him away much longer and we need to get your nerves under control and get a plan together.” 

You wiped your eyes once more and nodded. Indie gave you a soft smile before handing you the box you kept in your bag.

“I honestly don’t know what half the shit in here is,” You let out a laugh and took it from him, walking over to join him at the table. He had started to lay out the papers and documents that you were going to use as both proof and evidence. You still hadn’t decided if you were going to press charges, but Indie was sure that Robert would want to. 

You had just placed down your copy of adoption records when the door burst open once more, this time without nearly knocking you out. Your eyes shot up and you felt your throat clench when you saw Robert standing in the doorway, a confused look on his face. Tom popped up over his shoulder, mouthing an apology to the two of you. Quickly putting down the papers, you took a half step away from the table as Indio tried to fix the situation. 

“Hey, Dad. How was filming?” He ever so carefully slid the papers under each other behind his back, and your thumbnail ended up between your teeth once more. 

“It was good, now does someone want to tell me what’s going on?” He fully entered the room, crossing his arms as he raised his brows at his son. “I’m assuming this has to do with Holland trying to get me to taste everything at the buffet table?”

You shot Tom a look of wonder, and he just shrugged, stepping into the trailed and closing the door behind him. 

“You guys said to stall him and I ran out of ideas.” You stared at him a moment longer until he added, “And I was also hungry.” 

Indie let out a chuckle and was about to add to the conversation when Robert interrupted him again. 

“Aren’t you the biology partner?” He was looking straight at you and you felt your face heat up without your approval. You nodded, your eyes flashing between Indie’s and Tom’s. If you were anxious before, you were damn near a heart attack now. This was not how this was supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen this way. 

“Yeah, she is.” Indie said slowly, “But there’s something else that she is as well, something that we need to tell you.” 

“Are you two dating?” You let out a high pitched laugh that sounded slightly on the verge of hysteria. 

“Dating, oh my god what is happening.” Your voice had risen three octaves and you run your hands through your hair before sitting down on the edge of the couch. You could feel their eyes on you, and Indio inched closer, letting you know of his unspoken support. 

“No, we’re definitely not dating.” He let out a sigh, turning around to grab all the papers behind you in an unorganized clump. “You’re probably going to want to sit down.” 

He walked over and sat next to you, leaving Robert to the armchair directly across from you both. Neither of you noticed as Tom snuck out of the trailer to give the three of you time to talk.

“Do you have the test results?” Indie asked you, mentioning the DNA results that started this all. 

You nodded and grabbed the box off the side table, digging through it until you produced the two thick pieces of paper. They were the official DNA results, you had both figured that the classwork would not suffice in this situation. 

“Okay, so I’m not really sure where to start this.” Indio glanced at you, and for the first time that day, he looked unsure of the situation. You gnawed on your lip, looking down at the papers that were just out of view of his dad. 

“Dio, what’s going on. You know you can tell me anything.” Robert said softly, making you both look up at him. Seeing the truth in his face, you made the decision for both of you. Grabbing the papers out of Indie’s hands you arranged them into a way that would make sense and passed them over to Robert. He took them,  his eyes not leaving yours as he scrunched his forehead in confusion. 

“Just read them. We can explain anything else afterward.” He nodded and started to look through them, switching pages every few seconds. You felt as though the air had been sucked out of the room as you waited for him to finish. When he got to the DNA results, his eyes flashed upward, looking between the both of you with suspicion. Finally, he set them down on the table between you and crossed his arms over his chest. Your gaze met Indie’s as you both wondered what the older man was thinking. 

It was silent, the tension in the room building until your leg started to shake again on its own accord. 

“I don’t understand what this means.” One look at Indio’s face told you that he wasn’t going to be any help, and you were forced to bite the bullet yourself. 

“I’m your daughter, his twin.” There was a moment's pause and when no reaction was made you continued on. “I was taken for what I think was this illegal black market adoption ring, people would steal kids and them sell them for a lot of money for this ring who would them sell them to other people who would think it was a legit adoption company. Usually rich, desperate people. 

I would have stayed there with them, but they were in a car crash a few years after they adopted me and I was put into foster care. I bounced around for a while until I ended up at the school that was partnered with Hamptons Bay for a Bio project, a DNA comparison project. Indie and I happened to be paired up, and we figured it out but then there was the contest, and then the Thymes and I wanted to wait but Indie and Tom said that we shouldn’t, and we were going to do this in a smoother way where we could ease you into the idea, but then Indie was late and you were coming and so we just had to blurt it out and,” 

He cut you off, making your mouth close with a clank of your teeth. 

“I’m sorry, you’re what now?” He looked at you, then changed his gaze to his son who had been awfully quiet since the conversation started. 

“She’s what now?” Swallowing Indie flipped through the papers on the counter before pulling out the two DNA results and your original birth certificate and the fake copy that the adoption ring had made. 

“She’s my twin, your daughter.” He laid all four out in front of Robert, “She’s Y/N.” 

This time, Robert took in the information and understood what he was looking at. You could see his eyes start to water and when he looked up at you again you could see that he understood. 

“It really is you.” He said it softly, a tone that you had never heard in the movies and interviews you had seen of him. It was a tone that was reserved only for his family. “You came back.” 

He stood up and moved over to crouch in front of you. Gently, he unraveled your arms and took your hands in his, his grip loose enough to allow you to pull away should you choose. When you didn’t, his grip tightened slightly as he rubbed his thumb over the back of your hand. 

“We’ve missed you, Kid. You might not remember us, and to you, we’re probably strangers, but I have never stopped loving you or believe that you were still out there. Never.” You felt your own eyes water slightly at his words. Nobody had ever told you something with so much love and trust. This as a man you barely knew who had shown you more kindness in the last half an hour than anyone had in the past ten years. Sure, you had some good homes, with some nice parents, but they had never loved or cared for you as Robert claimed he did. 

[thejustinmarshall]

A Bike Ride Across America

  [NOTE: 2020 is the tenth year of my blog at Semi-Rad.com, and since I started it, I’ve been fortunate to get to do some pretty wonderful adventures. Throughout this year, I’ll be writing about 12 favorite adventures I’ve had since I started writing about the outdoors, one per month. This is the second in the series. The other stories in the series are here.]

As we looked over our menus, we began to sense that the Waffle House staff was nearing a complete meltdown. It was evening, Day 39 of our 49-day bicycle ride across America, March 15, 2010, and Tony and I had finished our day of riding, pushed our bikes and trailers into a hotel room a block away, showered, and walked to the nearest restaurant, which was a Waffle House. Tony and I were tired and ready to eat. Almost six weeks into our trip, our bodies had basically turned into machines that pedaled fully-loaded bicycles all day, burning 4,000 to 8,000 calories every day. We had taken only three rest days so far, and we would only take one more the rest of the 3,000-mile trip, so our average mileage for a day of riding was 66.67 miles. The day we arrived in Bayou La Batre, we had pedaled 105 miles, from Rogers Lake, Mississippi. It was my first-ever century ride, and although Waffle House might not be many people’s first choice after a ride like that, I was more than fine with it.

My back was to the open kitchen, so I could only eavesdrop, but Tony could see everything. From what we gathered, a rather large carryout order had come in, and the cook had basically totally fucked it up, causing delays in not only the large carryout order, but all the orders for customers sitting in the dining area as well. Not to mention the the staff, arguing amongst themselves in full view, enough to convince even the most die-hard Waffle House fan to eat elsewhere that night. Despite pleas from the waitstaff to call a manager in to help, the cook adamantly refused, making things awkward for literally everyone within earshot, which is to say the entire restaurant. It was the kind of thing that nowadays someone would record on a smartphone and post to Twitter in hopes that it would go viral. Since I couldn’t see, Tony narrated for me, as we tried to calculate how much food to order to replace 105 miles’ worth of calories:

“This is total mayhem.”

“The cook just threw something.”

“Okay, now the younger waitress is in the back crying.”

Were we not touring cyclists, we might have just decided to leave. But: It was evening, and we just wanted to eat and go to bed so we could get up early and pedal 60-some miles the next day, and our dining options in a small town were pretty limited, and further limited by the fact that if we wanted to go to a different restaurant, we’d have to walk to get to wherever it was. And, you know, you sort of have to ask yourself: If I want to go see America, is America things like the Statue of Liberty, the Grand Canyon, and the Hollywood sign? Or is it a Waffle House in a small town, hoping that the staff doesn’t mutiny, so we can get some hash browns? That’s a rhetorical question, but I’d argue for the Waffle House, open 24 hours, 365 days a year, a completely different scene at 2 a.m. than at 7:30 a.m., affordable to anyone who can scrounge up five bucks and thus open to people of all income levels but mostly patronized by those of us not in the 1 percent, potential for brief moments of public theater, but mostly just chugging along, making eggs and waffles. I mean, I love the Grand Canyon, but I think you can learn more about America at a diner.

We eventually were able to place our order, our food eventually came to the table, we eventually ate everything, and the Waffle House was still standing the next morning when we returned for breakfast, like nothing happened. We ate pretty much the same thing as the night before, and a local sitting at the counter chatted us up, reminding us that part of Forrest Gump was set here, in Bayou La Batre, Benjamin Buford “Bubba” Blue’s hometown, and where Forrest buys a boat to start the Bubba Gump shrimp company.

Tony and I went to high school in a town not much bigger than Bayou La Batre, and we spent many Friday and Saturday nights working together in a restaurant, washing dishes and busing tables. Tony shot up to 6 feet, 10 inches tall mid-high school, and everyone expected him to play basketball, but he had other ideas. He topped out at 7 feet tall, went to college, became a chiropractor in Chicago, and an entrepreneur.

When he asked me in 2009 if I’d like to bicycle across the country with him the next year, I said of course I would. He said he’d pay for it, which was an ideal situation for me, since I was making $26,000 a year working at a nonprofit. I had been riding my steel road bike to and from work daily in Denver for three and a half years, while trying to become an “adventure writer” in my spare time. In Chicago, Tony had been getting into triathlons and road rides. The last time we’d ridden our bikes any distance together was the last time I did RAGBRAI, the bike ride across Iowa, in 2000, and that was more of a party than a bike tour for us, if I’m honest.

Having not spent much time together in the past eight years, but hoping we could make it across the country on bikes and remain friends, we dipped our tires in the Pacific at Ocean Beach in San Diego on February 5, 2010, pushed them to the pavement, and started pedaling. Our final intended destination was St. Augustine, Florida, the opposite end of the Adventure Cycling Association’s Southern Tier Route, the flattest, shortest route across the country. Our first day, we climbed out of San Diego, managing 34.5 miles to Alpine, California.

Before I left for the trip, my wise friend Mick gave me two pieces of advice about long bike tours: 1) “You’re going to have some high highs and some low lows out there,” and 2) “Don’t try to muscle through anything—just keep spinning.” And my friend Maynard half-joked: “I hope you like riding eight miles per hour into a headwind.” All those things would ring true in the span of about 24 hours, much later in the trip.

I didn’t have any grand ideas about the trip, besides maybe being able to write about it, a magazine article, maybe even a book? I knew bicycling across America wasn’t the most unique thing, but maybe something would happen that would sustain a narrative. I bought a url and put up a blog to keep our friends and families up to date on our progress, and to help raise money for the nonprofit I worked for. I packed a $250 Asus laptop to try to keep the blog updated, and added wifi service to my Verizon plan, so I could turn my flip phone into a hotspot when we weren’t staying in a hotel with wifi.

I updated the blog every day, downloading photos from our digital cameras, writing a few sentences about our progress, sometimes a quote from a conversation with a stranger. Most days, though, in the “no shit, there I was …” sense of adventure writing, nothing really happened. What did happen is we plugged away, every day. We got up, ate as much food as we could stomach, got dressed, filled our water bottles, wheeled our bikes out to the road, swung a leg over the saddle, and started pedaling. We’d ride together for a few minutes, and Tony would get warmed up, and start to pull away, riding a half-mile, or a mile, or two miles ahead of me the entire day, stopping every couple hours to check in, or to stop at a cafe to eat lunch, or to pop into a convenience store to buy cans of Coke, Snickers bars, and whatever other calories looked good. Somewhere between 40 and 105 miles, we’d stop, find a hotel, shower, and eat at a restaurant somewhere. Tony wasn’t that excited to camp, although we’d brought camping gear (including a tent that could fit a 7-foot-tall person). I protested at first, saying I thought it would be “more legit” if we camped more. Tony said, “Riding your bike across America is legit,” and I could not argue with that point.

We rode across the bottom of California, occasionally looking to the U.S.-Mexico border fence to our right. We rode into Phoenix from the northwest, and out the southeast side, almost 60 miles of pedaling to get across the entire urban spread, and pedaled through the desert, away from angry dogs (I eventually developed a technique of explosively yelling at them, which stopped them in their tracks, surprised—except for the rottweilers) and into New Mexico, where we hit the highest elevation of the trip, 8,228-foot Emory Pass, on Day 15. We started to meet other cyclists on the same route, either headed the same direction or the opposite way, and realized there was really no “typical” cross-country rider: some were pedaling 50 or more miles a day, unsupported and stealth camping, others were riding solo 20 or 30 miles a day with a friend driving a minivan somewhere behind them, some had a schedule, some were taking their time.

On Day 20, we adjusted our route to take a less hilly path, avoiding the Davis Mountains in west Texas and heading to the town of Marfa on US 90. My memory of the day is the flattest, straightest road I’ve ever ridden on, with a few barely noticeable adjustments to the left, a slight uphill grade the entire way, and wide-open ranch land along both sides of the road. In the morning, we caught up with a couple named Bruce and Dana, a pair of retired teachers from Tacoma, and rode with them a good part of the day. The chipseal road was so rough that we tried to keep our wheels on the painted white line on the side of the road because it was that much smoother. Tony said he watched his bike computer slow from 12-14 mph to 9 mph several times when he rolled off the white line. In 75 miles of riding, the only town we’d go through on our map was Valentine, Texas, population 184, with no businesses to speak of besides the post office. A few miles before Valentine, however, is the art installation Prada Marfa, a fake Prada store in the middle of nowhere. I was riding with Bruce and Dana, and Tony was ahead of us somewhere. We stopped, took some photos, and pedaled on, catching Tony in Valentine a few miles later. He hadn’t stopped at the Prada store, because he hadn’t even noticed it on the side of the road as he rolled past—which is either almost unbelievable because the ride was so straight-ahead monotonous, or completely expected because the ride was so straight-ahead monotonous.

A few days later, I got the high highs and low lows Mick had promised. I did a lot of things to pass the time out there, pedaling six to eight hours a day, all the time in my own head while Tony rode a ways ahead. Tony had a little speaker on his bike to play music while he rode—I didn’t want to listen to music because I thought it would ruin my favorite music for me, spending all day listening to the same playlists, for 300+ hours total by the end of the trip. So I chose silence, talking to cows as I passed, making up lyrics to songs, sometimes talking to myself a bit. I didn’t have a bike computer or smartphone map, so I just pedaled, watching the horizon for signs of the next town. It was fantastically boring, and a decade later, when I spend all my waking hours checking my phone every few minutes, I look back on it with incredible nostalgia. I suppose we always look at the past as “a simpler time,” no matter what, because we remember the images in our minds and the general tone of a memory, but forget all the other things we were thinking about at the time. But it really did seem simple: wake up, eat, pedal, eat, pedal, eat, go to sleep. Repeat until you hit an ocean.

On Day 23, a few miles outside of Langtry, Texas, unincorporated, population 12, home to a museum and almost nothing else, I was pedaling by myself as the wind picked up, right in my face. I had read somewhere on the internet that you could camp in Langtry, but if you didn’t arrive by 5 p.m., the water was shut off. So I was a little anxious to get there as the wind started pushing into my face, then getting worried, because I had almost no water to drink, let alone to cook our food with when we camped that night. Then I got a flat tire. And the wind picked up. Then I got another flat tire. I got very frustrated, and then just kind of lost it for a few seconds. I screamed at the top of my lungs, while pedaling by myself, into the wind, alone on a highway, for a couple minutes, cranking my metaphorical steam valve wide open, and then, catching my breath, closed it again. Low low, check.

When I arrived in Langtry, the rumor about water turned out to be false, and I bought and ate a couple ice cream sandwiches at the corner store. We set up the tent, ate dinner, crashed, and during the night, the wind picked up to a steady 30 mph, coming from the east. The next morning, we headed out, with a handful of candy bars from the museum store to sustain us to Del Rio, 55 miles away. We pedaled, looking like two cartoon characters leaning into the wind, granny gear on the uphills, and granny gear on the downhills too. I just laughed, and kept spinning. The wind wouldn’t let up, or even change direction. If we had more food with us, we might have stopped for the night, but we didn’t, so our only hope was to reach Del Rio. We pedaled for 11 hours, stopping once at a small bar to grab a couple bags of potato chips and a few candy bars. We averaged 5 miles per hour the entire way, the wind never relenting until our last five miles into Del Rio, in the dark. Pedaling 8 miles per hour into a headwind, as Maynard had said, would have been a dream.

We rolled our bikes into a hotel room in Del Rio, ordered three large pizzas from Domino’s, ate them, and went to bed. Later that year, Tony would finish his first Ironman Triathlon, and when I texted him to congratulate him, he texted back that it wasn’t nearly as bad as “that day in Texas with the headwind.”

One of the things I believe many people will tell you about a long trip, whether it’s thru-hiking a long-distance trail, backpacking a hostel circuit for a month and a half, or pedaling a bicycle for weeks at a time, is that it’s as much about the people you meet as it is about the places you see. You meet people on a bike tour because you are on a bike, and the bicycle is a conversation starter. People see you as somewhere between a little crazy and complete idiots because you choose to travel by bicycle in the 21st century, but also because of the bicycle probably harmless enough that you won’t mind a little chit chat. If they see you and your fully-loaded bicycle outside a restaurant, convenience store, or hotel somewhere, they will ask you some, if not all, of these four questions:

Where are you headed?

Where did you start?

How many miles do you ride every day?

What do you eat?

At some point in the conversation, you will get a chance to ask them, “Are you from around here?” or something similar, and in that way, you get to meet a few people. Which is something that happens way less when you’re traveling inside a gas-powered, climate-controlled vehicle, in my experience. On my bike, I had brief conversations with Wal-Mart greeters, waitstaff, ferry employees, convenience store clerks, and fellow restaurant patrons, and it helped new, strange places feel welcoming, wherever we were.

The thing I started to feel as we racked up the miles, and that we both agreed on years later, is that we were going a little too fast, and that maybe it would have been nice to take a little more time and do a little more exploring, and talking to people. At the time, though, Tony’s business was young, and he was definitely motivated to get back to work instead of trying to keep things moving forward from the road with spotty cell service. And I was really just grateful to have two months off work (even unpaid), something that hasn’t happened since and may not happen again in my life. As we made our way across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and finally, Florida, we ran into more and more people bicycling the Southern Tier, and even one lady, Robin, riding the Southern Tier as just one leg of a giant rectangle around the perimeter of the United States, ensuring she’d still be pedaling her bike after I’d been back in the office for six months.

We had friends join us for sections, including our pal Nick, from high school, who rode the last 210 miles with us from Tallahassee to St. Augustine, slipping in as seamlessly as if he’d ridden the previous 2800 miles with us. As we got closer to the final miles, I started to think about what we’d done, and how I framed it in my life. I couldn’t really nail it down. It felt like a big adventure, but in the Yvon Chouinard “when everything goes wrong, that’s when adventure starts” sense, well, we made it through pretty unscathed and according to plan, aside from a bunch of flat tires and a couple of worn-out bike chains. It went really well—basically the opposite of a book like Into Thin Air, when everything did go wrong, to the point where it became a disaster and a bunch of people died. In 49 days together, we didn’t even have enough disagreements to fill half of an episode of Real Housewives of New Jersey.

In the ten years since Tony and I started pedaling east from San Diego, I’ve been lucky to spend lots of time in the outdoors, doing a bunch of different things that fall under the idea of “adventure.” Whether it’s backpacking, rock climbing, mountaineering, backcountry skiing, trail running, kayaking, whitewater rafting, or bikepacking, I think about all of it as travel, and trying to understand something through a mode of travel. Because whether it’s a boulder problem or a 2,200-mile thru-hike, you define it by traveling from one place to another by human-powered means, crimping through a 12-foot tall V11 or walking at 3 mph for 250 miles, starting line to finish line or put-in to take-out. On our bike ride across America, I realized that traveling by bicycle is just about my favorite way to see a place: slow enough to take in scenery, but with the ability to coast, carrying everything I need with me, but not on my back, and burning enough calories to eat a large pizza every evening if I want to.

I’ve since become friends with a couple of people who also bicycled across the U.S., but aren’t from here, one Chinese and the other English. I sometimes wonder how different their trips were from mine, and how different their perspective was on it. And if any of us, or anyone really, can say they’ve actually “seen America,” because America is a story, or an idea, and it’s much different now than when I pedaled across it in 2010. I guess all I know is that if you want to put in the effort and you want to feel like you’ve seen it, I don’t know a better way than on a two-wheeled machine that runs on Snickers bars and diner coffee. I can’t say exactly where you should go to look for America; I can just say I’d look somewhere besides the internet.

I never did try to write a book about our trip. I did manage a couple magazine articles, and a few blogs about bike touring, and I left our blog up on the internet for a decade before I finally made it private. But as the 10-year mark approached, I wanted to do something to thank Tony for the trip. So I started copying and pasting all the text from all those blogs, and tracking down all the photos, cringing at some of my writing (and fashion choices) at the time.

I spent probably 25 or 30 hours formatting them into a hardcover book. I printed a total of three copies—one for Tony, one for me, and one for my parents (my Dad had printed off and kept all the blog posts in a file this whole time). The photography isn’t amazing, and I’m not particularly proud of the writing, but it’s a book.

I finally finished it and had it ready to ship to Tony a few days late for the 10th anniversary of the start of our trip, and wrote a few sentences on a card to stick in the package. Now I can’t remember the exact words I wrote, except for two things: “Thanks,” and “still one of the biggest and best adventures of my life.”

—Brendan

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[olivereliott]

A Bike Ride Across America

  [NOTE: 2020 is the tenth year of my blog at Semi-Rad.com, and since I started it, I’ve been fortunate to get to do some pretty wonderful adventures. Throughout this year, I’ll be writing about 12 favorite adventures I’ve had since I started writing about the outdoors, one per month. This is the second in the series. The other stories in the series are here.]

As we looked over our menus, we began to sense that the Waffle House staff was nearing a complete meltdown. It was evening, Day 39 of our 49-day bicycle ride across America, March 15, 2010, and Tony and I had finished our day of riding, pushed our bikes and trailers into a hotel room a block away, showered, and walked to the nearest restaurant, which was a Waffle House. Tony and I were tired and ready to eat. Almost six weeks into our trip, our bodies had basically turned into machines that pedaled fully-loaded bicycles all day, burning 4,000 to 8,000 calories every day. We had taken only three rest days so far, and we would only take one more the rest of the 3,000-mile trip, so our average mileage for a day of riding was 66.67 miles. The day we arrived in Bayou La Batre, we had pedaled 105 miles, from Rogers Lake, Mississippi. It was my first-ever century ride, and although Waffle House might not be many people’s first choice after a ride like that, I was more than fine with it.

My back was to the open kitchen, so I could only eavesdrop, but Tony could see everything. From what we gathered, a rather large carryout order had come in, and the cook had basically totally fucked it up, causing delays in not only the large carryout order, but all the orders for customers sitting in the dining area as well. Not to mention the the staff, arguing amongst themselves in full view, enough to convince even the most die-hard Waffle House fan to eat elsewhere that night. Despite pleas from the waitstaff to call a manager in to help, the cook adamantly refused, making things awkward for literally everyone within earshot, which is to say the entire restaurant. It was the kind of thing that nowadays someone would record on a smartphone and post to Twitter in hopes that it would go viral. Since I couldn’t see, Tony narrated for me, as we tried to calculate how much food to order to replace 105 miles’ worth of calories:

“This is total mayhem.”

“The cook just threw something.”

“Okay, now the younger waitress is in the back crying.”

Were we not touring cyclists, we might have just decided to leave. But: It was evening, and we just wanted to eat and go to bed so we could get up early and pedal 60-some miles the next day, and our dining options in a small town were pretty limited, and further limited by the fact that if we wanted to go to a different restaurant, we’d have to walk to get to wherever it was. And, you know, you sort of have to ask yourself: If I want to go see America, is America things like the Statue of Liberty, the Grand Canyon, and the Hollywood sign? Or is it a Waffle House in a small town, hoping that the staff doesn’t mutiny, so we can get some hash browns? That’s a rhetorical question, but I’d argue for the Waffle House, open 24 hours, 365 days a year, a completely different scene at 2 a.m. than at 7:30 a.m., affordable to anyone who can scrounge up five bucks and thus open to people of all income levels but mostly patronized by those of us not in the 1 percent, potential for brief moments of public theater, but mostly just chugging along, making eggs and waffles. I mean, I love the Grand Canyon, but I think you can learn more about America at a diner.

We eventually were able to place our order, our food eventually came to the table, we eventually ate everything, and the Waffle House was still standing the next morning when we returned for breakfast, like nothing happened. We ate pretty much the same thing as the night before, and a local sitting at the counter chatted us up, reminding us that part of Forrest Gump was set here, in Bayou La Batre, Benjamin Buford “Bubba” Blue’s hometown, and where Forrest buys a boat to start the Bubba Gump shrimp company.

Tony and I went to high school in a town not much bigger than Bayou La Batre, and we spent many Friday and Saturday nights working together in a restaurant, washing dishes and busing tables. Tony shot up to 6 feet, 10 inches tall mid-high school, and everyone expected him to play basketball, but he had other ideas. He topped out at 7 feet tall, went to college, became a chiropractor in Chicago, and an entrepreneur.

When he asked me in 2009 if I’d like to bicycle across the country with him the next year, I said of course I would. He said he’d pay for it, which was an ideal situation for me, since I was making $26,000 a year working at a nonprofit. I had been riding my steel road bike to and from work daily in Denver for three and a half years, while trying to become an “adventure writer” in my spare time. In Chicago, Tony had been getting into triathlons and road rides. The last time we’d ridden our bikes any distance together was the last time I did RAGBRAI, the bike ride across Iowa, in 2000, and that was more of a party than a bike tour for us, if I’m honest.

Having not spent much time together in the past eight years, but hoping we could make it across the country on bikes and remain friends, we dipped our tires in the Pacific at Ocean Beach in San Diego on February 5, 2010, pushed them to the pavement, and started pedaling. Our final intended destination was St. Augustine, Florida, the opposite end of the Adventure Cycling Association’s Southern Tier Route, the flattest, shortest route across the country. Our first day, we climbed out of San Diego, managing 34.5 miles to Alpine, California.

Before I left for the trip, my wise friend Mick gave me two pieces of advice about long bike tours: 1) “You’re going to have some high highs and some low lows out there,” and 2) “Don’t try to muscle through anything—just keep spinning.” And my friend Maynard half-joked: “I hope you like riding eight miles per hour into a headwind.” All those things would ring true in the span of about 24 hours, much later in the trip.

I didn’t have any grand ideas about the trip, besides maybe being able to write about it, a magazine article, maybe even a book? I knew bicycling across America wasn’t the most unique thing, but maybe something would happen that would sustain a narrative. I bought a url and put up a blog to keep our friends and families up to date on our progress, and to help raise money for the nonprofit I worked for. I packed a $250 Asus laptop to try to keep the blog updated, and added wifi service to my Verizon plan, so I could turn my flip phone into a hotspot when we weren’t staying in a hotel with wifi.

I updated the blog every day, downloading photos from our digital cameras, writing a few sentences about our progress, sometimes a quote from a conversation with a stranger. Most days, though, in the “no shit, there I was …” sense of adventure writing, nothing really happened. What did happen is we plugged away, every day. We got up, ate as much food as we could stomach, got dressed, filled our water bottles, wheeled our bikes out to the road, swung a leg over the saddle, and started pedaling. We’d ride together for a few minutes, and Tony would get warmed up, and start to pull away, riding a half-mile, or a mile, or two miles ahead of me the entire day, stopping every couple hours to check in, or to stop at a cafe to eat lunch, or to pop into a convenience store to buy cans of Coke, Snickers bars, and whatever other calories looked good. Somewhere between 40 and 105 miles, we’d stop, find a hotel, shower, and eat at a restaurant somewhere. Tony wasn’t that excited to camp, although we’d brought camping gear (including a tent that could fit a 7-foot-tall person). I protested at first, saying I thought it would be “more legit” if we camped more. Tony said, “Riding your bike across America is legit,” and I could not argue with that point.

We rode across the bottom of California, occasionally looking to the U.S.-Mexico border fence to our right. We rode into Phoenix from the northwest, and out the southeast side, almost 60 miles of pedaling to get across the entire urban spread, and pedaled through the desert, away from angry dogs (I eventually developed a technique of explosively yelling at them, which stopped them in their tracks, surprised—except for the rottweilers) and into New Mexico, where we hit the highest elevation of the trip, 8,228-foot Emory Pass, on Day 15. We started to meet other cyclists on the same route, either headed the same direction or the opposite way, and realized there was really no “typical” cross-country rider: some were pedaling 50 or more miles a day, unsupported and stealth camping, others were riding solo 20 or 30 miles a day with a friend driving a minivan somewhere behind them, some had a schedule, some were taking their time.

On Day 20, we adjusted our route to take a less hilly path, avoiding the Davis Mountains in west Texas and heading to the town of Marfa on US 90. My memory of the day is the flattest, straightest road I’ve ever ridden on, with a few barely noticeable adjustments to the left, a slight uphill grade the entire way, and wide-open ranch land along both sides of the road. In the morning, we caught up with a couple named Bruce and Dana, a pair of retired teachers from Tacoma, and rode with them a good part of the day. The chipseal road was so rough that we tried to keep our wheels on the painted white line on the side of the road because it was that much smoother. Tony said he watched his bike computer slow from 12-14 mph to 9 mph several times when he rolled off the white line. In 75 miles of riding, the only town we’d go through on our map was Valentine, Texas, population 184, with no businesses to speak of besides the post office. A few miles before Valentine, however, is the art installation Prada Marfa, a fake Prada store in the middle of nowhere. I was riding with Bruce and Dana, and Tony was ahead of us somewhere. We stopped, took some photos, and pedaled on, catching Tony in Valentine a few miles later. He hadn’t stopped at the Prada store, because he hadn’t even noticed it on the side of the road as he rolled past—which is either almost unbelievable because the ride was so straight-ahead monotonous, or completely expected because the ride was so straight-ahead monotonous.

A few days later, I got the high highs and low lows Mick had promised. I did a lot of things to pass the time out there, pedaling six to eight hours a day, all the time in my own head while Tony rode a ways ahead. Tony had a little speaker on his bike to play music while he rode—I didn’t want to listen to music because I thought it would ruin my favorite music for me, spending all day listening to the same playlists, for 300+ hours total by the end of the trip. So I chose silence, talking to cows as I passed, making up lyrics to songs, sometimes talking to myself a bit. I didn’t have a bike computer or smartphone map, so I just pedaled, watching the horizon for signs of the next town. It was fantastically boring, and a decade later, when I spend all my waking hours checking my phone every few minutes, I look back on it with incredible nostalgia. I suppose we always look at the past as “a simpler time,” no matter what, because we remember the images in our minds and the general tone of a memory, but forget all the other things we were thinking about at the time. But it really did seem simple: wake up, eat, pedal, eat, pedal, eat, go to sleep. Repeat until you hit an ocean.

On Day 23, a few miles outside of Langtry, Texas, unincorporated, population 12, home to a museum and almost nothing else, I was pedaling by myself as the wind picked up, right in my face. I had read somewhere on the internet that you could camp in Langtry, but if you didn’t arrive by 5 p.m., the water was shut off. So I was a little anxious to get there as the wind started pushing into my face, then getting worried, because I had almost no water to drink, let alone to cook our food with when we camped that night. Then I got a flat tire. And the wind picked up. Then I got another flat tire. I got very frustrated, and then just kind of lost it for a few seconds. I screamed at the top of my lungs, while pedaling by myself, into the wind, alone on a highway, for a couple minutes, cranking my metaphorical steam valve wide open, and then, catching my breath, closed it again. Low low, check.

When I arrived in Langtry, the rumor about water turned out to be false, and I bought and ate a couple ice cream sandwiches at the corner store. We set up the tent, ate dinner, crashed, and during the night, the wind picked up to a steady 30 mph, coming from the east. The next morning, we headed out, with a handful of candy bars from the museum store to sustain us to Del Rio, 55 miles away. We pedaled, looking like two cartoon characters leaning into the wind, granny gear on the uphills, and granny gear on the downhills too. I just laughed, and kept spinning. The wind wouldn’t let up, or even change direction. If we had more food with us, we might have stopped for the night, but we didn’t, so our only hope was to reach Del Rio. We pedaled for 11 hours, stopping once at a small bar to grab a couple bags of potato chips and a few candy bars. We averaged 5 miles per hour the entire way, the wind never relenting until our last five miles into Del Rio, in the dark. Pedaling 8 miles per hour into a headwind, as Maynard had said, would have been a dream.

We rolled our bikes into a hotel room in Del Rio, ordered three large pizzas from Domino’s, ate them, and went to bed. Later that year, Tony would finish his first Ironman Triathlon, and when I texted him to congratulate him, he texted back that it wasn’t nearly as bad as “that day in Texas with the headwind.”

One of the things I believe many people will tell you about a long trip, whether it’s thru-hiking a long-distance trail, backpacking a hostel circuit for a month and a half, or pedaling a bicycle for weeks at a time, is that it’s as much about the people you meet as it is about the places you see. You meet people on a bike tour because you are on a bike, and the bicycle is a conversation starter. People see you as somewhere between a little crazy and complete idiots because you choose to travel by bicycle in the 21st century, but also because of the bicycle probably harmless enough that you won’t mind a little chit chat. If they see you and your fully-loaded bicycle outside a restaurant, convenience store, or hotel somewhere, they will ask you some, if not all, of these four questions:

Where are you headed?

Where did you start?

How many miles do you ride every day?

What do you eat?

At some point in the conversation, you will get a chance to ask them, “Are you from around here?” or something similar, and in that way, you get to meet a few people. Which is something that happens way less when you’re traveling inside a gas-powered, climate-controlled vehicle, in my experience. On my bike, I had brief conversations with Wal-Mart greeters, waitstaff, ferry employees, convenience store clerks, and fellow restaurant patrons, and it helped new, strange places feel welcoming, wherever we were.

The thing I started to feel as we racked up the miles, and that we both agreed on years later, is that we were going a little too fast, and that maybe it would have been nice to take a little more time and do a little more exploring, and talking to people. At the time, though, Tony’s business was young, and he was definitely motivated to get back to work instead of trying to keep things moving forward from the road with spotty cell service. And I was really just grateful to have two months off work (even unpaid), something that hasn’t happened since and may not happen again in my life. As we made our way across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and finally, Florida, we ran into more and more people bicycling the Southern Tier, and even one lady, Robin, riding the Southern Tier as just one leg of a giant rectangle around the perimeter of the United States, ensuring she’d still be pedaling her bike after I’d been back in the office for six months.

We had friends join us for sections, including our pal Nick, from high school, who rode the last 210 miles with us from Tallahassee to St. Augustine, slipping in as seamlessly as if he’d ridden the previous 2800 miles with us. As we got closer to the final miles, I started to think about what we’d done, and how I framed it in my life. I couldn’t really nail it down. It felt like a big adventure, but in the Yvon Chouinard “when everything goes wrong, that’s when adventure starts” sense, well, we made it through pretty unscathed and according to plan, aside from a bunch of flat tires and a couple of worn-out bike chains. It went really well—basically the opposite of a book like Into Thin Air, when everything did go wrong, to the point where it became a disaster and a bunch of people died. In 49 days together, we didn’t even have enough disagreements to fill half of an episode of Real Housewives of New Jersey.

In the ten years since Tony and I started pedaling east from San Diego, I’ve been lucky to spend lots of time in the outdoors, doing a bunch of different things that fall under the idea of “adventure.” Whether it’s backpacking, rock climbing, mountaineering, backcountry skiing, trail running, kayaking, whitewater rafting, or bikepacking, I think about all of it as travel, and trying to understand something through a mode of travel. Because whether it’s a boulder problem or a 2,200-mile thru-hike, you define it by traveling from one place to another by human-powered means, crimping through a 12-foot tall V11 or walking at 3 mph for 250 miles, starting line to finish line or put-in to take-out. On our bike ride across America, I realized that traveling by bicycle is just about my favorite way to see a place: slow enough to take in scenery, but with the ability to coast, carrying everything I need with me, but not on my back, and burning enough calories to eat a large pizza every evening if I want to.

I’ve since become friends with a couple of people who also bicycled across the U.S., but aren’t from here, one Chinese and the other English. I sometimes wonder how different their trips were from mine, and how different their perspective was on it. And if any of us, or anyone really, can say they’ve actually “seen America,” because America is a story, or an idea, and it’s much different now than when I pedaled across it in 2010. I guess all I know is that if you want to put in the effort and you want to feel like you’ve seen it, I don’t know a better way than on a two-wheeled machine that runs on Snickers bars and diner coffee. I can’t say exactly where you should go to look for America; I can just say I’d look somewhere besides the internet.

I never did try to write a book about our trip. I did manage a couple magazine articles, and a few blogs about bike touring, and I left our blog up on the internet for a decade before I finally made it private. But as the 10-year mark approached, I wanted to do something to thank Tony for the trip. So I started copying and pasting all the text from all those blogs, and tracking down all the photos, cringing at some of my writing (and fashion choices) at the time.

I spent probably 25 or 30 hours formatting them into a hardcover book. I printed a total of three copies—one for Tony, one for me, and one for my parents (my Dad had printed off and kept all the blog posts in a file this whole time). The photography isn’t amazing, and I’m not particularly proud of the writing, but it’s a book.

I finally finished it and had it ready to ship to Tony a few days late for the 10th anniversary of the start of our trip, and wrote a few sentences on a card to stick in the package. Now I can’t remember the exact words I wrote, except for two things: “Thanks,” and “still one of the biggest and best adventures of my life.”

—Brendan

The post A Bike Ride Across America appeared first on semi-rad.com.

[jonathanleesink]

The Eve of Change

Originally posted on January 18, 2018

“We were born with the ability to change someone’s life, don’t ever waste it”

I once read that a good deed loses its value once you tell someone of the deed you did. I have been trying to live this way for the past several months…quietly being a good person. I find a great reward in helping people, I always have. The power of social media I have found is a peculiar thing. For the past six or seven years I have leveraged social media to raise money for worthy causes that I found to be important. It was rewarding and hard work. In 2017 I made the decision to close down my fundraising operations to give back some much needed time to myself and my family. Around the same time I also made the bold decision to delete my Facebook and Twitter accounts. I made this decision for the same reason as closing down Freshcassette; to have more time to myself and to my wonderful family, and to quietly live my life. I miss being in touch with my friends, and seeing photos of people’s families. What I don’t miss is the constant divisiveness on social issues that has inundated everyone’s news feeds. Whether you love or hate Facebook it has proven that it can equally divide us, as it can bring good and kindness to our lives. Just weeks prior to my unplugging from Facebook something wondrous was ignited from the platform that will soon change mine, and nine other lives forever.

At the beginning of October last year I came across a Facebook post my wife, Jamie, had shared from one of her co-workers. The post immediately caught my attention. It contained a photo of a young family consisting of a father, mother, and two young children. The text of the post was written by the wife/mother informing her social network that her husband is on dialysis and is in need of his second kidney transplant. She eloquently described her husband’s situation, what it would mean to be a potential donor, how to get tested to be matched, and if people would kindly share her post. I didn’t know this family. I only knew my wife worked with this man’s wife. I also knew that he had two young children, just like I do. I knew I had to get tested. Why wouldn’t I? He needs a kidney, and I could potentially give one to him. No brainer, right?

After I discussed this with Jamie, I gave the University of Kansas Transplant Center a call. After a 20 minute phone call, I successfully passed the initial phone screen. They inform me that they are going to send me a blood pressure machine and that I need to take my blood pressure two times a day for five days, and then send them my results. I receive the machine the day before I am going out of town for four days to Nashville for work. I take my blood pressure every morning and every evening in my hotel, then on the final day from home. A few days later KU calls to tell me my blood pressure is good, and asks if I can come in to give some blood to determine my blood type and to see if I am a match for the intended recipient.

Another week later I get the phone call I have been waiting on. This phone call will tell me if I am a match to donate my kidney to my new acquaintance. 

“Hi Jon, we got your blood test results back and we were able to confirm your blood type is O+, but unfortunately you are not a match for your intended recipient.”   

Okay, I knew this was likely, but I was still a little disappointed. Through this process I have learned it is very difficult to find two people who match. They look at more than just blood type; they make sure that the two people’s blood will play nice with each other. Apparently ours were two armies of jousting blood cells who would fight ferociously to protect their turf.

Now what? Through all of the testing I knew I wanted to donate a kidney. I really couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it earlier. It took me reading a Facebook post to open my eyes. People, lots of people, are hooked up to dialysis machines for hours every week. People are dying everyday waiting on a transplant list. Healthy people have two functioning kidneys, and we only really need one. I have a spare! To me the decision was easy, why would I not donate something I have two of to someone who could die if they don’t have one?

So I tell the nice woman from KU on the phone that I want to donate anyway…to someone that will match me. The next step in the process is to have a daylong appointment at KU Med in Kansas City, KS. We get the appointment scheduled for a couple weeks out. At this point it is mid-November. I started this at the beginning of October. At this marathon appointment I have mini-appointments with:

Living Donor Nurse Coordinator

The lab for lots of blood and urine

Nephrologist (kidney doctor)

Surgeon (the guy who will actually cut me open)

Pharmacist

Dietician

Financial Coordinator

Social Worker

Another social worker

Psychiatrist

Chest x-ray

Pelvic MRI

This all took about ten and half hours in one day. But it was done. A little over a week later I get another phone call from the Nurse Coordinator to inform me that all of the tests they ran on me confirmed I am healthy with no hidden ailments, and I am approved to be a living kidney donor.  

Towards the beginning of December I learned two things.

1) My original intended recipient (from the Facebook post) has a matched donor and is scheduled for surgery right after the New Year. This made me so happy. I would have been somewhat bummed if I gave my kidney away and he still didn’t have one. (Note: surgery was successful for both donor and recipient)

2) The smart folks at the University of Kansas Transplant Center did some crazy algorithmic wizardry and found a way to turn my donation into a ten person kidney transplant chain. Kidney chains are hard to explain in words. This linked article does a good job of it, and there is also the picture below. I would be the donor in the top/left…the one with my name on my shirt ;) Essentially there are five donors and five recipients, all of which will have their surgeries at KU on either January 29th or the 30th.

So this is where I am at right now. For the past month I have patiently been waiting…quietly. Through this whole process I have remained very private about it. I have only really told close family and a handful of people at work. My intent wasn’t to keep this a secret. I just felt strange telling people. I didn’t want to come across as a boastful grand-stander. My very first sentence of this writing expresses the idea of goodness losing its value once it is talked about. This has been what has kept me quiet up to this point. As the days are getting closer and closer to my surgery date, I feel a pressing need to explain to my family and friends why I will be laid up for four to six weeks in recovery. I also feel a responsibility to bring awareness to the need for living kidney donors, or just organ donation in general. Until a few months ago, I never really gave living donation a thought. Not because I didn’t want to, but because it was never brought to my attention. The need for kidney donors is high, but the supply is low. If more people were educated on the process, I truly think more people would be willing to help.

I have been questioned why I would want to give my kidney to a stranger. The only thing that separates a stranger from someone you know is an introduction. Strangers have family and friends that love them, but for one reason or another they don’t have a donor who can donate to them. I am also not of the opinion that someone’s life is less valuable than mine or anyone else’s. We are all universally interconnected, and we need to demonstrate compassion and empathy for each other…regardless of who that person may or may not be. We hear a lot about equality these days. This is equality in its rawest form. There are many “what if” scenarios when contemplating living donation. What if I need my kidney later in life? What if a family member needs a kidney? These are legit concerns, but they are also unknown questions. What I know right now is that on January 29th a patient approved by KU’s transplant team needs a kidney, and I am willing to give her/him one. I am unable to see into the future, so I choose to live in the present.

I wrote this as a way to tell people about my upcoming procedure. What’s ironic is I no longer have a Facebook account to spread the word. I did keep my Instagram account, so maybe a few will see this. I may venture back into the Facebook world at some point. It does have its value, I mean all of this started because of a Facebook post I read. But right now, I am going to continue to enjoy the quiet for a bit longer….

[fesahaawit]

That Time We Carried $20,000 Across The Border

[What up, what up! If you’ve ever considered transporting large amounts of cash across international borders, this post is for you ;) As told by Sarah Li Cain from High Fiving Dollars who hopes to never have to do this again! And if you’re reading this on Black Friday – good job. We’re running a site-wide sale today where everything’s 100% off :) Enjoy!]

***********

This is the true story of how we transported $20,000 in cash across international borders. I would have loved to been able to provide photographic evidence of this, but frankly I was scared out of my mind when my boyfriend (now husband) and I decided to actually go through with this.

Instead, here’s a photo of the two of us back in our youth:

[please tell me why I thought those glasses were cool?]

Before I get into how we actually carried across all that money, let’s go over why we actually did it.

I lived in China for 8 years. I must have really liked it because that’s where I met my husband, got married and had a kid.

Among the cool things you get to do? Visit really crazy places. One of the most memorable places was a restaurant called “Modern Toilet” where you literally get served chocolate ice cream in toilet bowls. I’m not kidding.

[The food wasn’t bad!]

While there were many great things I loved about China, unfortunately the major drawback was their banking system. (It has gotten noticeably better over the years for expats, but at the time we were living there it was terribly frustrating)

Language barriers aside, doing any kind of international transactions was a pain in the ass. My husband and I each saved quite a bit of money in our accounts living there, and we both needed to transfer this money into our home country’s accounts to pay bills and for other reasons. This meant that every month or so, we had to go to the bank to do two wire transfers: one to my bank in Canada where I’m originally from, and another into my husband’s account in the U.S..

The rules in China, however, are that you’re only allowed to transfer a certain amount of money internationally every month. On top of that, whenever you wanted to make a transfer you not only needed your IDs, but a whole slew of paperwork as well. This included our work contracts, our Chinese tax returns, official declarations from the government about how much we made, and a stack of forms from the bank. There was also no online banking or instructions/bank tellers who spoke English there at the time (7 years ago), so we had to rely on Google Translate to figure everything out.

I waited at least two hours every time I went to the bank on a good day, and it wasn’t ever fun for the tellers either. They had to stamp every freaking piece of paper, get approval from the manager for every button they pressed on the computer, and all the while trying their best to speak broken English.

My husband didn’t fair any better during his visit either. In fact, he’d go multiple rounds trying to make the transfers happen while each time wasting two hours and then at the end being denied over and over!

We even tried giving Western Union a shot to see if it’d be any easier (and cheaper).

Nope.

We ended up paying almost 10% in fees alone and it was equally as frustrating.

Then one day my husband joked that we should just buy a briefcase and carry all our cash over when we both went home for the holidays.

I’m always up for a challenge, so why the heck not? What could go wrong?

It was about three months from the time we decided to bring cash across to the U.S. and Canada to when we actually did it. Our plan was to exchange our money into U.S. and Canadian currency first, hide it in our apartment, pack it all in a suitcase, and then deposit everything once we landed in our home countries.

We looked up the maximum amount we could each carry across the border, and it came out to $10,000 USD per family. Since my husband and I weren’t technically married yet, that meant we could each carry $10,000 across the border without raising any eyebrows (or so we hoped).

Unfortunately, once again our plan hit some road bumps.

When we tried to convert our Chinese currency (RMB) into U.S. and Canadian dollars at the bank, we were met with solid resistance. The manager would literally give us “a look” and then flat out refuse to speak to us. We later found a translator who told us that it was virtually impossible for even locals to get foreign currency, and that the amount we were requesting was unheard of.

After grilling a local friend for alternatives, we eventually decided to take out Chinese RMB in cash, and then take that directly to a currency exchange stand in order to convert it over. She warned us that these places are usually located in sketchy areas, however, and that not so reputable people hang out there (though I hear it’s not the case anymore). These places will also try to rip you off by giving you decent exchange rates, but then sneaking in counterfeit bills.

So off my husband and I went. We didn’t want to do too large a transaction at first just to be safe, so we started with $1,000 and found a place to exchange our money. My husband is six feet tall and I’m pretty sure that helped keep the loiters at bay. When we got our money, we hid around a corner to check each and every single bill to make sure they were legit, and then went on our merry way when it was good.

It took us about six weeks to exchange $10,000 each. You’re only allowed to exchange a certain amount each time, so we had to make multiple visits which was for the best as neither of us enjoys carrying around too much cash at one time.

During this time we hid the money around our apartments. I literally stuck hundred dollar bills under my mattress among other places as I was so paranoid about someone breaking in! We also hid money:

In jacket pockets

In shoes

In crockpots we barely used

And in tupperware

When it came time to go visit our families at Christmas, we gathered all our money in one place and planned how we were going to pack it all.

I don’t know about you, but seeing $20,000 in physical cash is A LOT. We had it stacked on my bed and it looked like a giant mountain to me. I looked at my husband and literally asked if I could swim in it. After all, it was a once in a lifetime experience!

Next thing we knew, we threw a bunch of bills up in the air and were frolicking around in money. There’s something about doing backstrokes on a bed with $20,000 that does it for you :)

Finally, We Carry The Cash Over

Now came the hard part: how do we actually carry all this cash? Without getting stopped at the border?

We crossed off the suitcase idea as that would just be way too suspicious, and eventually figured that dispersing our money was the way go to. The x-rays will show we had money, but at least there wouldn’t be huge stacks all in one place.

Here’s what my husband did:

Bought special cargo pants with multiple pockets so he could take the cash in and out when going through security

Sewed secret pockets in his laptop case

Rolled up t-shirts in his carry on luggage with money in it

Carried cash in his wallet

Here’s what I did:

Hid cash in my laptop case and purse

Stuffed some money in my bra (this was before those fancy machines at the TSA security check)

Stuffed money in my makeup case

Put bills in-between pages of the books I was “reading”

Keep in mind, we weren’t doing anything illegal although it sure as hell felt like we were. In hindsight we probably went a little crazy on hiding everything, but I wasn’t going to take any chances with people either stealing from us or being stopped at the border. Our track record up to this point hadn’t been that smooth.

Then off we went!

Step #1: Go through security in China and board the plane. Success! We stated we were carrying cash, but nobody asked us how much so we easily got our exit stamps.

Step #2: Relax on the plane. Fail. We could barely sleep, as we were just too paranoid the entire trip.

Step #3: Get across the U.S. border! (We made our first stop in my husband’s country before heading to Canada). My hands were shaking the entire time as I filled out the immigration form –  I felt like I was lying when the form asked if I was carrying more than $10,000 in cash, but I checked the “no” box.

Then it was the moment of truth…

I walked over to the customs agent, he looks at me and then down at the form, asks me where I’m staying (I manage to utter “my future in-laws”), looks back down again, and then stamps the passport and says, “have a nice time.”

And just like that it was over! WE DID IT!!

My husband had the same experience clearing customs, and it was a piece of cake getting the second half of our money into my Canadian bank as well.

Pretty anti-climactic, I know – sorry – but what a whirlwind getting to this point… I’m just super grateful I never have to deal with this again. Though I have to admit, it was pretty fun swimming in all that money for a few minutes!

Anyone else ever launder move large amounts of cash across the border? Any tips for anyone who may have to do it themselves one day?

******* Sarah Li Cain is a financial storyteller who weaves practical tips and strategies into her work so that others trying to change their mindset can see themselves in the starring role. She loves answering reader questions on her blog, HighFivingDollars.com, and openly shares her financial struggles through different experiments she runs. Check out her “Ultimate Guide to Money Mindset Mastery!”

Other fun gems for your viewing pleasure today:

That Time I Woke Up From a “Bill Coma” and Started Saving My $$$!

That Time I Borrowed $14,000… Then Gave it Right Back

That Time I Got in (Another) Car Accident…

That Time We Carried $20,000 Across The Border posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ

[heliosfinance]

That Time We Carried $20,000 Across The Border

[What up, what up! If you’ve ever considered transporting large amounts of cash across international borders, this post is for you ;) As told by Sarah Li Cain from High Fiving Dollars who hopes to never have to do this again! And if you’re reading this on Black Friday – good job. We’re running a site-wide sale today where everything’s 100% off :) Enjoy!]

***********

This is the true story of how we transported $20,000 in cash across international borders. I would have loved to been able to provide photographic evidence of this, but frankly I was scared out of my mind when my boyfriend (now husband) and I decided to actually go through with this.

Instead, here’s a photo of the two of us back in our youth:

[please tell me why I thought those glasses were cool?]

Before I get into how we actually carried across all that money, let’s go over why we actually did it.

I lived in China for 8 years. I must have really liked it because that’s where I met my husband, got married and had a kid.

Among the cool things you get to do? Visit really crazy places. One of the most memorable places was a restaurant called “Modern Toilet” where you literally get served chocolate ice cream in toilet bowls. I’m not kidding.

[The food wasn’t bad!]

While there were many great things I loved about China, unfortunately the major drawback was their banking system. (It has gotten noticeably better over the years for expats, but at the time we were living there it was terribly frustrating)

Language barriers aside, doing any kind of international transactions was a pain in the ass. My husband and I each saved quite a bit of money in our accounts living there, and we both needed to transfer this money into our home country’s accounts to pay bills and for other reasons. This meant that every month or so, we had to go to the bank to do two wire transfers: one to my bank in Canada where I’m originally from, and another into my husband’s account in the U.S..

The rules in China, however, are that you’re only allowed to transfer a certain amount of money internationally every month. On top of that, whenever you wanted to make a transfer you not only needed your IDs, but a whole slew of paperwork as well. This included our work contracts, our Chinese tax returns, official declarations from the government about how much we made, and a stack of forms from the bank. There was also no online banking or instructions/bank tellers who spoke English there at the time (7 years ago), so we had to rely on Google Translate to figure everything out.

I waited at least two hours every time I went to the bank on a good day, and it wasn’t ever fun for the tellers either. They had to stamp every freaking piece of paper, get approval from the manager for every button they pressed on the computer, and all the while trying their best to speak broken English.

My husband didn’t fair any better during his visit either. In fact, he’d go multiple rounds trying to make the transfers happen while each time wasting two hours and then at the end being denied over and over!

We even tried giving Western Union a shot to see if it’d be any easier (and cheaper).

Nope.

We ended up paying almost 10% in fees alone and it was equally as frustrating.

Then one day my husband joked that we should just buy a briefcase and carry all our cash over when we both went home for the holidays.

I’m always up for a challenge, so why the heck not? What could go wrong?

It was about three months from the time we decided to bring cash across to the U.S. and Canada to when we actually did it. Our plan was to exchange our money into U.S. and Canadian currency first, hide it in our apartment, pack it all in a suitcase, and then deposit everything once we landed in our home countries.

We looked up the maximum amount we could each carry across the border, and it came out to $10,000 USD per family. Since my husband and I weren’t technically married yet, that meant we could each carry $10,000 across the border without raising any eyebrows (or so we hoped).

Unfortunately, once again our plan hit some road bumps.

When we tried to convert our Chinese currency (RMB) into U.S. and Canadian dollars at the bank, we were met with solid resistance. The manager would literally give us “a look” and then flat out refuse to speak to us. We later found a translator who told us that it was virtually impossible for even locals to get foreign currency, and that the amount we were requesting was unheard of.

After grilling a local friend for alternatives, we eventually decided to take out Chinese RMB in cash, and then take that directly to a currency exchange stand in order to convert it over. She warned us that these places are usually located in sketchy areas, however, and that not so reputable people hang out there (though I hear it’s not the case anymore). These places will also try to rip you off by giving you decent exchange rates, but then sneaking in counterfeit bills.

So off my husband and I went. We didn’t want to do too large a transaction at first just to be safe, so we started with $1,000 and found a place to exchange our money. My husband is six feet tall and I’m pretty sure that helped keep the loiters at bay. When we got our money, we hid around a corner to check each and every single bill to make sure they were legit, and then went on our merry way when it was good.

It took us about six weeks to exchange $10,000 each. You’re only allowed to exchange a certain amount each time, so we had to make multiple visits which was for the best as neither of us enjoys carrying around too much cash at one time.

During this time we hid the money around our apartments. I literally stuck hundred dollar bills under my mattress among other places as I was so paranoid about someone breaking in! We also hid money:

In jacket pockets

In shoes

In crockpots we barely used

And in tupperware

When it came time to go visit our families at Christmas, we gathered all our money in one place and planned how we were going to pack it all.

I don’t know about you, but seeing $20,000 in physical cash is A LOT. We had it stacked on my bed and it looked like a giant mountain to me. I looked at my husband and literally asked if I could swim in it. After all, it was a once in a lifetime experience!

Next thing we knew, we threw a bunch of bills up in the air and were frolicking around in money. There’s something about doing backstrokes on a bed with $20,000 that does it for you :)

Finally, We Carry The Cash Over

Now came the hard part: how do we actually carry all this cash? Without getting stopped at the border?

We crossed off the suitcase idea as that would just be way too suspicious, and eventually figured that dispersing our money was the way go to. The x-rays will show we had money, but at least there wouldn’t be huge stacks all in one place.

Here’s what my husband did:

Bought special cargo pants with multiple pockets so he could take the cash in and out when going through security

Sewed secret pockets in his laptop case

Rolled up t-shirts in his carry on luggage with money in it

Carried cash in his wallet

Here’s what I did:

Hid cash in my laptop case and purse

Stuffed some money in my bra (this was before those fancy machines at the TSA security check)

Stuffed money in my makeup case

Put bills in-between pages of the books I was “reading”

Keep in mind, we weren’t doing anything illegal although it sure as hell felt like we were. In hindsight we probably went a little crazy on hiding everything, but I wasn’t going to take any chances with people either stealing from us or being stopped at the border. Our track record up to this point hadn’t been that smooth.

Then off we went!

Step #1: Go through security in China and board the plane. Success! We stated we were carrying cash, but nobody asked us how much so we easily got our exit stamps.

Step #2: Relax on the plane. Fail. We could barely sleep, as we were just too paranoid the entire trip.

Step #3: Get across the U.S. border! (We made our first stop in my husband’s country before heading to Canada). My hands were shaking the entire time as I filled out the immigration form –  I felt like I was lying when the form asked if I was carrying more than $10,000 in cash, but I checked the “no” box.

Then it was the moment of truth…

I walked over to the customs agent, he looks at me and then down at the form, asks me where I’m staying (I manage to utter “my future in-laws”), looks back down again, and then stamps the passport and says, “have a nice time.”

And just like that it was over! WE DID IT!!

My husband had the same experience clearing customs, and it was a piece of cake getting the second half of our money into my Canadian bank as well.

Pretty anti-climactic, I know – sorry – but what a whirlwind getting to this point… I’m just super grateful I never have to deal with this again. Though I have to admit, it was pretty fun swimming in all that money for a few minutes!

Anyone else ever launder move large amounts of cash across the border? Any tips for anyone who may have to do it themselves one day?

******* Sarah Li Cain is a financial storyteller who weaves practical tips and strategies into her work so that others trying to change their mindset can see themselves in the starring role. She loves answering reader questions on her blog, HighFivingDollars.com, and openly shares her financial struggles through different experiments she runs. Check out her “Ultimate Guide to Money Mindset Mastery!”

Other fun gems for your viewing pleasure today:

That Time I Woke Up From a “Bill Coma” and Started Saving My $$$!

That Time I Borrowed $14,000… Then Gave it Right Back

That Time I Got in (Another) Car Accident…

That Time We Carried $20,000 Across The Border published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B

[fesahaawit]

That Time We Carried $20,000 Across The Border

[What up, what up! If you’ve ever considered transporting large amounts of cash across international borders, this post is for you ;) As told by Sarah Li Cain from High Fiving Dollars who hopes to never have to do this again! And if you’re reading this on Black Friday – good job. We’re running a site-wide sale today where everything’s 100% off :) Enjoy!]

***********

This is the true story of how we transported $20,000 in cash across international borders. I would have loved to been able to provide photographic evidence of this, but frankly I was scared out of my mind when my boyfriend (now husband) and I decided to actually go through with this.

Instead, here’s a photo of the two of us back in our youth:

[please tell me why I thought those glasses were cool?]

Before I get into how we actually carried across all that money, let’s go over why we actually did it.

I lived in China for 8 years. I must have really liked it because that’s where I met my husband, got married and had a kid.

Among the cool things you get to do? Visit really crazy places. One of the most memorable places was a restaurant called “Modern Toilet” where you literally get served chocolate ice cream in toilet bowls. I’m not kidding.

[The food wasn’t bad!]

While there were many great things I loved about China, unfortunately the major drawback was their banking system. (It has gotten noticeably better over the years for expats, but at the time we were living there it was terribly frustrating)

Language barriers aside, doing any kind of international transactions was a pain in the ass. My husband and I each saved quite a bit of money in our accounts living there, and we both needed to transfer this money into our home country’s accounts to pay bills and for other reasons. This meant that every month or so, we had to go to the bank to do two wire transfers: one to my bank in Canada where I’m originally from, and another into my husband’s account in the U.S..

The rules in China, however, are that you’re only allowed to transfer a certain amount of money internationally every month. On top of that, whenever you wanted to make a transfer you not only needed your IDs, but a whole slew of paperwork as well. This included our work contracts, our Chinese tax returns, official declarations from the government about how much we made, and a stack of forms from the bank. There was also no online banking or instructions/bank tellers who spoke English there at the time (7 years ago), so we had to rely on Google Translate to figure everything out.

I waited at least two hours every time I went to the bank on a good day, and it wasn’t ever fun for the tellers either. They had to stamp every freaking piece of paper, get approval from the manager for every button they pressed on the computer, and all the while trying their best to speak broken English.

My husband didn’t fair any better during his visit either. In fact, he’d go multiple rounds trying to make the transfers happen while each time wasting two hours and then at the end being denied over and over!

We even tried giving Western Union a shot to see if it’d be any easier (and cheaper).

Nope.

We ended up paying almost 10% in fees alone and it was equally as frustrating.

Then one day my husband joked that we should just buy a briefcase and carry all our cash over when we both went home for the holidays.

I’m always up for a challenge, so why the heck not? What could go wrong?

It was about three months from the time we decided to bring cash across to the U.S. and Canada to when we actually did it. Our plan was to exchange our money into U.S. and Canadian currency first, hide it in our apartment, pack it all in a suitcase, and then deposit everything once we landed in our home countries.

We looked up the maximum amount we could each carry across the border, and it came out to $10,000 USD per family. Since my husband and I weren’t technically married yet, that meant we could each carry $10,000 across the border without raising any eyebrows (or so we hoped).

Unfortunately, once again our plan hit some road bumps.

When we tried to convert our Chinese currency (RMB) into U.S. and Canadian dollars at the bank, we were met with solid resistance. The manager would literally give us “a look” and then flat out refuse to speak to us. We later found a translator who told us that it was virtually impossible for even locals to get foreign currency, and that the amount we were requesting was unheard of.

After grilling a local friend for alternatives, we eventually decided to take out Chinese RMB in cash, and then take that directly to a currency exchange stand in order to convert it over. She warned us that these places are usually located in sketchy areas, however, and that not so reputable people hang out there (though I hear it’s not the case anymore). These places will also try to rip you off by giving you decent exchange rates, but then sneaking in counterfeit bills.

So off my husband and I went. We didn’t want to do too large a transaction at first just to be safe, so we started with $1,000 and found a place to exchange our money. My husband is six feet tall and I’m pretty sure that helped keep the loiters at bay. When we got our money, we hid around a corner to check each and every single bill to make sure they were legit, and then went on our merry way when it was good.

It took us about six weeks to exchange $10,000 each. You’re only allowed to exchange a certain amount each time, so we had to make multiple visits which was for the best as neither of us enjoys carrying around too much cash at one time.

During this time we hid the money around our apartments. I literally stuck hundred dollar bills under my mattress among other places as I was so paranoid about someone breaking in! We also hid money:

In jacket pockets

In shoes

In crockpots we barely used

And in tupperware

When it came time to go visit our families at Christmas, we gathered all our money in one place and planned how we were going to pack it all.

I don’t know about you, but seeing $20,000 in physical cash is A LOT. We had it stacked on my bed and it looked like a giant mountain to me. I looked at my husband and literally asked if I could swim in it. After all, it was a once in a lifetime experience!

Next thing we knew, we threw a bunch of bills up in the air and were frolicking around in money. There’s something about doing backstrokes on a bed with $20,000 that does it for you :)

Finally, We Carry The Cash Over

Now came the hard part: how do we actually carry all this cash? Without getting stopped at the border?

We crossed off the suitcase idea as that would just be way too suspicious, and eventually figured that dispersing our money was the way go to. The x-rays will show we had money, but at least there wouldn’t be huge stacks all in one place.

Here’s what my husband did:

Bought special cargo pants with multiple pockets so he could take the cash in and out when going through security

Sewed secret pockets in his laptop case

Rolled up t-shirts in his carry on luggage with money in it

Carried cash in his wallet

Here’s what I did:

Hid cash in my laptop case and purse

Stuffed some money in my bra (this was before those fancy machines at the TSA security check)

Stuffed money in my makeup case

Put bills in-between pages of the books I was “reading”

Keep in mind, we weren’t doing anything illegal although it sure as hell felt like we were. In hindsight we probably went a little crazy on hiding everything, but I wasn’t going to take any chances with people either stealing from us or being stopped at the border. Our track record up to this point hadn’t been that smooth.

Then off we went!

Step #1: Go through security in China and board the plane. Success! We stated we were carrying cash, but nobody asked us how much so we easily got our exit stamps.

Step #2: Relax on the plane. Fail. We could barely sleep, as we were just too paranoid the entire trip.

Step #3: Get across the U.S. border! (We made our first stop in my husband’s country before heading to Canada). My hands were shaking the entire time as I filled out the immigration form –  I felt like I was lying when the form asked if I was carrying more than $10,000 in cash, but I checked the “no” box.

Then it was the moment of truth…

I walked over to the customs agent, he looks at me and then down at the form, asks me where I’m staying (I manage to utter “my future in-laws”), looks back down again, and then stamps the passport and says, “have a nice time.”

And just like that it was over! WE DID IT!!

My husband had the same experience clearing customs, and it was a piece of cake getting the second half of our money into my Canadian bank as well.

Pretty anti-climactic, I know – sorry – but what a whirlwind getting to this point… I’m just super grateful I never have to deal with this again. Though I have to admit, it was pretty fun swimming in all that money for a few minutes!

Anyone else ever launder move large amounts of cash across the border? Any tips for anyone who may have to do it themselves one day?

******* Sarah Li Cain is a financial storyteller who weaves practical tips and strategies into her work so that others trying to change their mindset can see themselves in the starring role. She loves answering reader questions on her blog, HighFivingDollars.com, and openly shares her financial struggles through different experiments she runs. Check out her “Ultimate Guide to Money Mindset Mastery!”

Other fun gems for your viewing pleasure today:

That Time I Woke Up From a “Bill Coma” and Started Saving My $$$!

That Time I Borrowed $14,000… Then Gave it Right Back

That Time I Got in (Another) Car Accident…

That Time We Carried $20,000 Across The Border posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ

[fesahaawit]

That Time We Carried $20,000 Across The Border

[What up, what up! If you’ve ever considered transporting large amounts of cash across international borders, this post is for you ;) As told by Sarah Li Cain from High Fiving Dollars who hopes to never have to do this again! And if you’re reading this on Black Friday – good job. We’re running a site-wide sale today where everything’s 100% off :) Enjoy!]

***********

This is the true story of how we transported $20,000 in cash across international borders. I would have loved to been able to provide photographic evidence of this, but frankly I was scared out of my mind when my boyfriend (now husband) and I decided to actually go through with this.

Instead, here’s a photo of the two of us back in our youth:

[please tell me why I thought those glasses were cool?]

Before I get into how we actually carried across all that money, let’s go over why we actually did it.

I lived in China for 8 years. I must have really liked it because that’s where I met my husband, got married and had a kid.

Among the cool things you get to do? Visit really crazy places. One of the most memorable places was a restaurant called “Modern Toilet” where you literally get served chocolate ice cream in toilet bowls. I’m not kidding.

[The food wasn’t bad!]

While there were many great things I loved about China, unfortunately the major drawback was their banking system. (It has gotten noticeably better over the years for expats, but at the time we were living there it was terribly frustrating)

Language barriers aside, doing any kind of international transactions was a pain in the ass. My husband and I each saved quite a bit of money in our accounts living there, and we both needed to transfer this money into our home country’s accounts to pay bills and for other reasons. This meant that every month or so, we had to go to the bank to do two wire transfers: one to my bank in Canada where I’m originally from, and another into my husband’s account in the U.S..

The rules in China, however, are that you’re only allowed to transfer a certain amount of money internationally every month. On top of that, whenever you wanted to make a transfer you not only needed your IDs, but a whole slew of paperwork as well. This included our work contracts, our Chinese tax returns, official declarations from the government about how much we made, and a stack of forms from the bank. There was also no online banking or instructions/bank tellers who spoke English there at the time (7 years ago), so we had to rely on Google Translate to figure everything out.

I waited at least two hours every time I went to the bank on a good day, and it wasn’t ever fun for the tellers either. They had to stamp every freaking piece of paper, get approval from the manager for every button they pressed on the computer, and all the while trying their best to speak broken English.

My husband didn’t fair any better during his visit either. In fact, he’d go multiple rounds trying to make the transfers happen while each time wasting two hours and then at the end being denied over and over!

We even tried giving Western Union a shot to see if it’d be any easier (and cheaper).

Nope.

We ended up paying almost 10% in fees alone and it was equally as frustrating.

Then one day my husband joked that we should just buy a briefcase and carry all our cash over when we both went home for the holidays.

I’m always up for a challenge, so why the heck not? What could go wrong?

It was about three months from the time we decided to bring cash across to the U.S. and Canada to when we actually did it. Our plan was to exchange our money into U.S. and Canadian currency first, hide it in our apartment, pack it all in a suitcase, and then deposit everything once we landed in our home countries.

We looked up the maximum amount we could each carry across the border, and it came out to $10,000 USD per family. Since my husband and I weren’t technically married yet, that meant we could each carry $10,000 across the border without raising any eyebrows (or so we hoped).

Unfortunately, once again our plan hit some road bumps.

When we tried to convert our Chinese currency (RMB) into U.S. and Canadian dollars at the bank, we were met with solid resistance. The manager would literally give us “a look” and then flat out refuse to speak to us. We later found a translator who told us that it was virtually impossible for even locals to get foreign currency, and that the amount we were requesting was unheard of.

After grilling a local friend for alternatives, we eventually decided to take out Chinese RMB in cash, and then take that directly to a currency exchange stand in order to convert it over. She warned us that these places are usually located in sketchy areas, however, and that not so reputable people hang out there (though I hear it’s not the case anymore). These places will also try to rip you off by giving you decent exchange rates, but then sneaking in counterfeit bills.

So off my husband and I went. We didn’t want to do too large a transaction at first just to be safe, so we started with $1,000 and found a place to exchange our money. My husband is six feet tall and I’m pretty sure that helped keep the loiters at bay. When we got our money, we hid around a corner to check each and every single bill to make sure they were legit, and then went on our merry way when it was good.

It took us about six weeks to exchange $10,000 each. You’re only allowed to exchange a certain amount each time, so we had to make multiple visits which was for the best as neither of us enjoys carrying around too much cash at one time.

During this time we hid the money around our apartments. I literally stuck hundred dollar bills under my mattress among other places as I was so paranoid about someone breaking in! We also hid money:

In jacket pockets

In shoes

In crockpots we barely used

And in tupperware

When it came time to go visit our families at Christmas, we gathered all our money in one place and planned how we were going to pack it all.

I don’t know about you, but seeing $20,000 in physical cash is A LOT. We had it stacked on my bed and it looked like a giant mountain to me. I looked at my husband and literally asked if I could swim in it. After all, it was a once in a lifetime experience!

Next thing we knew, we threw a bunch of bills up in the air and were frolicking around in money. There’s something about doing backstrokes on a bed with $20,000 that does it for you :)

Finally, We Carry The Cash Over

Now came the hard part: how do we actually carry all this cash? Without getting stopped at the border?

We crossed off the suitcase idea as that would just be way too suspicious, and eventually figured that dispersing our money was the way go to. The x-rays will show we had money, but at least there wouldn’t be huge stacks all in one place.

Here’s what my husband did:

Bought special cargo pants with multiple pockets so he could take the cash in and out when going through security

Sewed secret pockets in his laptop case

Rolled up t-shirts in his carry on luggage with money in it

Carried cash in his wallet

Here’s what I did:

Hid cash in my laptop case and purse

Stuffed some money in my bra (this was before those fancy machines at the TSA security check)

Stuffed money in my makeup case

Put bills in-between pages of the books I was “reading”

Keep in mind, we weren’t doing anything illegal although it sure as hell felt like we were. In hindsight we probably went a little crazy on hiding everything, but I wasn’t going to take any chances with people either stealing from us or being stopped at the border. Our track record up to this point hadn’t been that smooth.

Then off we went!

Step #1: Go through security in China and board the plane. Success! We stated we were carrying cash, but nobody asked us how much so we easily got our exit stamps.

Step #2: Relax on the plane. Fail. We could barely sleep, as we were just too paranoid the entire trip.

Step #3: Get across the U.S. border! (We made our first stop in my husband’s country before heading to Canada). My hands were shaking the entire time as I filled out the immigration form –  I felt like I was lying when the form asked if I was carrying more than $10,000 in cash, but I checked the “no” box.

Then it was the moment of truth…

I walked over to the customs agent, he looks at me and then down at the form, asks me where I’m staying (I manage to utter “my future in-laws”), looks back down again, and then stamps the passport and says, “have a nice time.”

And just like that it was over! WE DID IT!!

My husband had the same experience clearing customs, and it was a piece of cake getting the second half of our money into my Canadian bank as well.

Pretty anti-climactic, I know – sorry – but what a whirlwind getting to this point… I’m just super grateful I never have to deal with this again. Though I have to admit, it was pretty fun swimming in all that money for a few minutes!

Anyone else ever launder move large amounts of cash across the border? Any tips for anyone who may have to do it themselves one day?

******* Sarah Li Cain is a financial storyteller who weaves practical tips and strategies into her work so that others trying to change their mindset can see themselves in the starring role. She loves answering reader questions on her blog, HighFivingDollars.com, and openly shares her financial struggles through different experiments she runs. Check out her “Ultimate Guide to Money Mindset Mastery!”

Other fun gems for your viewing pleasure today:

That Time I Woke Up From a “Bill Coma” and Started Saving My $$$!

That Time I Borrowed $14,000… Then Gave it Right Back

That Time I Got in (Another) Car Accident…

That Time We Carried $20,000 Across The Border posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ

[heliosfinance]

That Time We Carried $20,000 Across The Border

[What up, what up! If you’ve ever considered transporting large amounts of cash across international borders, this post is for you ;) As told by Sarah Li Cain from High Fiving Dollars who hopes to never have to do this again! And if you’re reading this on Black Friday – good job. We’re running a site-wide sale today where everything’s 100% off :) Enjoy!]

***********

This is the true story of how we transported $20,000 in cash across international borders. I would have loved to been able to provide photographic evidence of this, but frankly I was scared out of my mind when my boyfriend (now husband) and I decided to actually go through with this.

Instead, here’s a photo of the two of us back in our youth:

[please tell me why I thought those glasses were cool?]

Before I get into how we actually carried across all that money, let’s go over why we actually did it.

I lived in China for 8 years. I must have really liked it because that’s where I met my husband, got married and had a kid.

Among the cool things you get to do? Visit really crazy places. One of the most memorable places was a restaurant called “Modern Toilet” where you literally get served chocolate ice cream in toilet bowls. I’m not kidding.

[The food wasn’t bad!]

While there were many great things I loved about China, unfortunately the major drawback was their banking system. (It has gotten noticeably better over the years for expats, but at the time we were living there it was terribly frustrating)

Language barriers aside, doing any kind of international transactions was a pain in the ass. My husband and I each saved quite a bit of money in our accounts living there, and we both needed to transfer this money into our home country’s accounts to pay bills and for other reasons. This meant that every month or so, we had to go to the bank to do two wire transfers: one to my bank in Canada where I’m originally from, and another into my husband’s account in the U.S..

The rules in China, however, are that you’re only allowed to transfer a certain amount of money internationally every month. On top of that, whenever you wanted to make a transfer you not only needed your IDs, but a whole slew of paperwork as well. This included our work contracts, our Chinese tax returns, official declarations from the government about how much we made, and a stack of forms from the bank. There was also no online banking or instructions/bank tellers who spoke English there at the time (7 years ago), so we had to rely on Google Translate to figure everything out.

I waited at least two hours every time I went to the bank on a good day, and it wasn’t ever fun for the tellers either. They had to stamp every freaking piece of paper, get approval from the manager for every button they pressed on the computer, and all the while trying their best to speak broken English.

My husband didn’t fair any better during his visit either. In fact, he’d go multiple rounds trying to make the transfers happen while each time wasting two hours and then at the end being denied over and over!

We even tried giving Western Union a shot to see if it’d be any easier (and cheaper).

Nope.

We ended up paying almost 10% in fees alone and it was equally as frustrating.

Then one day my husband joked that we should just buy a briefcase and carry all our cash over when we both went home for the holidays.

I’m always up for a challenge, so why the heck not? What could go wrong?

It was about three months from the time we decided to bring cash across to the U.S. and Canada to when we actually did it. Our plan was to exchange our money into U.S. and Canadian currency first, hide it in our apartment, pack it all in a suitcase, and then deposit everything once we landed in our home countries.

We looked up the maximum amount we could each carry across the border, and it came out to $10,000 USD per family. Since my husband and I weren’t technically married yet, that meant we could each carry $10,000 across the border without raising any eyebrows (or so we hoped).

Unfortunately, once again our plan hit some road bumps.

When we tried to convert our Chinese currency (RMB) into U.S. and Canadian dollars at the bank, we were met with solid resistance. The manager would literally give us “a look” and then flat out refuse to speak to us. We later found a translator who told us that it was virtually impossible for even locals to get foreign currency, and that the amount we were requesting was unheard of.

After grilling a local friend for alternatives, we eventually decided to take out Chinese RMB in cash, and then take that directly to a currency exchange stand in order to convert it over. She warned us that these places are usually located in sketchy areas, however, and that not so reputable people hang out there (though I hear it’s not the case anymore). These places will also try to rip you off by giving you decent exchange rates, but then sneaking in counterfeit bills.

So off my husband and I went. We didn’t want to do too large a transaction at first just to be safe, so we started with $1,000 and found a place to exchange our money. My husband is six feet tall and I’m pretty sure that helped keep the loiters at bay. When we got our money, we hid around a corner to check each and every single bill to make sure they were legit, and then went on our merry way when it was good.

It took us about six weeks to exchange $10,000 each. You’re only allowed to exchange a certain amount each time, so we had to make multiple visits which was for the best as neither of us enjoys carrying around too much cash at one time.

During this time we hid the money around our apartments. I literally stuck hundred dollar bills under my mattress among other places as I was so paranoid about someone breaking in! We also hid money:

In jacket pockets

In shoes

In crockpots we barely used

And in tupperware

When it came time to go visit our families at Christmas, we gathered all our money in one place and planned how we were going to pack it all.

I don’t know about you, but seeing $20,000 in physical cash is A LOT. We had it stacked on my bed and it looked like a giant mountain to me. I looked at my husband and literally asked if I could swim in it. After all, it was a once in a lifetime experience!

Next thing we knew, we threw a bunch of bills up in the air and were frolicking around in money. There’s something about doing backstrokes on a bed with $20,000 that does it for you :)

Finally, We Carry The Cash Over

Now came the hard part: how do we actually carry all this cash? Without getting stopped at the border?

We crossed off the suitcase idea as that would just be way too suspicious, and eventually figured that dispersing our money was the way go to. The x-rays will show we had money, but at least there wouldn’t be huge stacks all in one place.

Here’s what my husband did:

Bought special cargo pants with multiple pockets so he could take the cash in and out when going through security

Sewed secret pockets in his laptop case

Rolled up t-shirts in his carry on luggage with money in it

Carried cash in his wallet

Here’s what I did:

Hid cash in my laptop case and purse

Stuffed some money in my bra (this was before those fancy machines at the TSA security check)

Stuffed money in my makeup case

Put bills in-between pages of the books I was “reading”

Keep in mind, we weren’t doing anything illegal although it sure as hell felt like we were. In hindsight we probably went a little crazy on hiding everything, but I wasn’t going to take any chances with people either stealing from us or being stopped at the border. Our track record up to this point hadn’t been that smooth.

Then off we went!

Step #1: Go through security in China and board the plane. Success! We stated we were carrying cash, but nobody asked us how much so we easily got our exit stamps.

Step #2: Relax on the plane. Fail. We could barely sleep, as we were just too paranoid the entire trip.

Step #3: Get across the U.S. border! (We made our first stop in my husband’s country before heading to Canada). My hands were shaking the entire time as I filled out the immigration form –  I felt like I was lying when the form asked if I was carrying more than $10,000 in cash, but I checked the “no” box.

Then it was the moment of truth…

I walked over to the customs agent, he looks at me and then down at the form, asks me where I’m staying (I manage to utter “my future in-laws”), looks back down again, and then stamps the passport and says, “have a nice time.”

And just like that it was over! WE DID IT!!

My husband had the same experience clearing customs, and it was a piece of cake getting the second half of our money into my Canadian bank as well.

Pretty anti-climactic, I know – sorry – but what a whirlwind getting to this point… I’m just super grateful I never have to deal with this again. Though I have to admit, it was pretty fun swimming in all that money for a few minutes!

Anyone else ever launder move large amounts of cash across the border? Any tips for anyone who may have to do it themselves one day?

******* Sarah Li Cain is a financial storyteller who weaves practical tips and strategies into her work so that others trying to change their mindset can see themselves in the starring role. She loves answering reader questions on her blog, HighFivingDollars.com, and openly shares her financial struggles through different experiments she runs. Check out her “Ultimate Guide to Money Mindset Mastery!”

Other fun gems for your viewing pleasure today:

That Time I Woke Up From a “Bill Coma” and Started Saving My $$$!

That Time I Borrowed $14,000… Then Gave it Right Back

That Time I Got in (Another) Car Accident…

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