S01-E04
LA, Santa Fe, Details, and Minneapolis
We are Mark and Jonica, and we are excited to catch you up on everything we have been doing in the past couple weeks. After completing the road trip from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, we had a few days in Minneapolis to check some very important boxes. Maybe not the sexiest of topics, but necessary things we had to get done before embarking on this adventure.
We met with our financial advisor, Darla. Hey, hey, Darla It's important that you get a very detailed snapshot of your finances before making a trip like this, right? You want to make sure that when you come back that your funds are taken care of and in the right place prior to leaving for a year to two years. And that you're making money off of those accounts as much as you can while you're gone because you don't have a paycheck anymore Also, yeah, to that point, also important that you make sure that your beneficiaries are all up to date on your accounts and that you have everything in line before you board that plane.
Yep. Just in case. Totally. It's super important and this is kind of old people's stuff, although it shouldn't just be old people's stuff - it's super important that you have a will and power of attorneys in place, because you want to know, should this be your decision, that that person is going to pull that plug, should it come to that.
Morbid stuff, I know, but like, very important to have all of that in place, because you never know what's going to happen. An interesting thing I think that we learned is that your will has to be created, in the state that you're living in. So we took a long time doing this process. I think we started doing it, reached out to an attorney when we were living in New York. Then when we moved to Pennsylvania, we tried to get back in contact with that attorney. They were like, we can't do anything for you because you don't live in New York anymore. We found someone in Pennsylvania. So now finally everything it seems like is in order. We've got that will we've got our powers of attorney again, not super fun, but I think very important especially if you don't have children. The laws, of our country, it's like, you know, should the parents die obviously, everything goes to the children, but if you don't have children like us and you don't want to put your family in some sort of awkward situation, it's important that you have everything detailed out.
Money does things to people, and even the closest of families, when there's money involved, someone passes away, it can turn into a thing. And we just didn't want to have that burden be on, on anyone in our family. We wanted to have it clearly outlined in the black and white, which is what we did. Yeah, so now all of our millions and millions of dollars end up going to two, three, three girls. They end up going to three of our nieces. Yeah, it's just not that. Don't don't get your hopes up. Don't retire yet. Because we also had to drop some major coin getting all of our vaccines. This was another appointment that we did.
Passport Health - they're all over the country. They give you all of the things. But it's very expensive. Very, very expensive. Farber was not happy. This was a huge setback. Financially and emotionally for me. Because of the costs associated with the vaccines. Even if you have insurance coverage, it doesn't matter because our country is so great when it comes to health insurance. But basically, they're like, well, you don't need Yellow Fever vaccine if you live in the United States, so we're not gonna pay for it. It's your choice that you're going to travel to a country that you need this in, so you have to pay for all of it, but honestly, like, for me, in my mind, it's better to be safe than, than sorry. So, in total, I think it was about $5,200 for the two of us. In one day I had six shots. That was fun. You had five. Because one of the shots that I got, Typhoid, you elected to take pills. The pills can be very, very hard on your stomach, and as I've talked about, I have a horrible stomach. Um, so I did not want to, to put that on myself. The nurse practitioner agreed that I should just do the vaccine, but the pills last, last longer. Five years. Yeah. you're set for five years. I now only have two years, but again, because of, uh, of my stomach, I went for the shot. So there, there is that pros and cons. Um, but you're, you've been taking the pills and you've been fine, of course, because we've talked about how you have a stomach of steel.
So in addition to the shots and the vaccinations, we also picked up some malaria pills, a hundred each in total, much against my personal opinion that they're necessary. They are not, but I'm not a medical doctor and I want to please my wife and make sure she's happy. So, she was insistent. Plus, you get really sweet dreams from taking the malaria pills. I mean, I already have, really strange dreams, but, these pills, man, whoo, it's, it's something else. But again, I think it's better to be safe than sorry. So we, we got a lot of them because you have to take them for a period of time before you get to A location and then after , so we'll kind of pick and choose, depending on where we are, if we want to take them or not.
And part of the whole concept of getting the vaccinations that you can't get into some countries if you don't have a vaccination from, if you're leaving from a country in which there is a presence of that. Disease. Yeah. So you can't go from, for example, Cambodia to Turkey. Without having the vaccination because Cambodia is prone to malaria or typhoid. This trip I think makes it a little bit more difficult than if you're just, you know, traveling from the states to, location A, location B. Because we don't know exactly where we're going to be traveling from and then to. We definitely wanted to cover our bases because, and it's not like we can’t get stuff, I think, when we're on the road if we need to, but you never know. Obviously, every country is different. There's developing countries that might not have as much access to things. And so, we just wanted to make sure that, for the big ones, right, that we were covered.
And so, for anybody interested in the details... Of the six vaccinations we got, typhoid. We got our Hepatitis B shot. We got Japanese Encephalitis, which I don't even know what, how that occurs or what that is. It seems to be a big deal, though. They really want you to get it. We got a booster of our measles, mumps, and rebellia. We got our polio vaccine, because that's coming back again in some countries, ironically, and finally, yellow fever. Yeah, we, we got a lot. A lot of these things that, like, you thought, maybe, cool, I'll get it before I go to kindergarten, and then I'm good for, for life, but, apparently, since we're older now, and these things are coming back in other countries, they want you to, to re-up and get that booster. We also, pertinent to Jonica's situation, we got aTraveler's Diarrhea Kit for each of us. This is like an emergency pack. So when we do hit India... Jonica will be consuming the entire two packs. Yeah, mine and hers included probably in a couple of days. But, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, so again Insurance does not cover this stuff. These are electives, you know These are outside the box of your COVID your flu vaccine, which are generally covered by insurance so be prepared for the financial burden which comes with getting vaccinations in advance of traveling. Yes. And everything is, up to your discretion, right? Unless, obviously, the country requires you to, to have it before you enter. But, we didn't get the rabies treatment because that would have added another $2,000 to this already steep bill. We figure we're gonna steer clear of the wild dogs and monkeys and things and hope that we don't get bit. But, if we do, we will have our traveler's insurance, which we think will cover the treatment. So, we elected not to do that. So, fingers crossed. You can ride as many horses as you want to, but you cannot touch the dogs. I've only been bit by one horse one time, and that was your fault. So we're not gonna do that again.
That's a whole other story. We got our flu shot already. We're hoping that the new COVID vaccine is available before we leave. Obviously, we are, we're all about getting, the vaccines everyone has their point of view on that, but this is our point of view. We would like to get them and just check those boxes so that we feel safe. Grab the jab as we're on the road. Alright, so, after getting stuck by a lot of needles, we departed for our next stop on our farewell tour, and that was L. A.
So, after our time in Los Feliz, we went to Santa Monica for a couple of days, which we had not been there for a very long time, since I think 2012, for your cousin's wedding. Right. And, It was great. It was fun to have that, that different vibe, right? Santa Monica, Venice, obviously very, very different than Los Feliz and, Silver Lake.
My friend Courtney flew down from San Francisco. Thanks, Courtney! We walked down the boardwalk. We had some great meals. First was the Santa Monica Seafood Market, which you found. Super cute. Fresh fish, all the things, all the seafood, and then, like, I don't know, probably 10, 15 tables that you could, like, order at. It's a fish market more so than a restaurant. Exactly. So that was fun. Super cool vibes. We went to American Beauty for dinner. Outdoor, steakhouse very good. And our last night we went to Birdie G's, southern vibes very cute decor. We had the pickled chicken, which was so good. Very, very unhealthy, but incredibly good and this huge relish tray which anyone that knows me knows that I love anything that is pickled or sour. Give it to me - get in my belly.
We also one day stopped for drinks at the Santa Monica Proper Hotel. I love Kelly Wearstler’s design aesthetic. She is an interior designer. She's done all of the Proper Hotels. I think the newest one is in Austin. But this place is just my dream world. It was incredible to see in person all of the textures and the layout and the materials, things that you would never think to put together, that you would think would be in total contrast with each other, like she, she does it and there was of course influencers there shooting their content, which I don't blame them because it truly is an amazing space and I've been wanting to go there for a very long time and, even if you don't stay there you should definitely stop by and at least have a drink or pop in to take a few pics because it really is beautiful. And then also, my friend Rori came all the way from Silver Lake to meet us for brunch one day, her and her man. That was super fun because we were friends from New York way back in the day.
So, it's been great, the people that we've been able to see along the way as well. So, from pickled plates. To Keith Haring, to interior design elements that make Jonica want to move right into the proper hotel - we move on to our next destination.
Now we're heading to a new state - New Mexico, which is where we went to visit my uncle, my aunt, and my cousins. Yes, it was my first time. It's always exciting when you get to go to a, a state for the first time.
And it was almost a first time for me. I lived there for a summer in college. That was decades ago, so a lot has changed in Santa Fe. It was really nice to be in Santa Fe again. And this was smore family time, more sightseeing, but highlights, I think, from Santa Fe. The puppies? Yes. All the dogs. All the dogs. We have so many dogs. The, farmer's market, the Santa Fe Rail Yard Farmer's Market, which is a refurbished trading yard where they have an outdoor market. Yeah. Your cousin actually remarked that. She also said that it used to be not the best part of town, but weird how that happens. Things change, and now it's a farmer's market we went and walked. Walked along the stalls. Yeah. Mm-hmm. From there, we went to the main town square in Santa Fe, which is like, old school Adobe buildings. Had a little lunch. Turquoise. Lots of turquoise, lots of silver. All the turquoise you could ever want. Yeah, lots of leather. And fur. And fur.
Alright, so we also did little outdoor activities in Santa Fe. Outside of Santa Fe proper is the Pecos National Historical Park. This is an old adobe pueblo that was established when the Spaniards came over. It was then taken over at one point by the missionaries, trying to bring in that religion. And then it was abandoned until the 60s when an archaeologist found the site, uncovered it, and now they've actually restored it to its like original build out, the adobe build out that was there from. Yeah, partially. So you could get, you could get the vibe. Then outside of the historical element, my cousin also recommended that we go to the Galisteo Basin Preserve, And this is an area, it's all volunteer, but essentially 10, 000 acres of preserved land in Santa Fe, north of it if you will, and 41 miles of trails hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, you go in and out of these valleys and around stone monuments. It's a beautiful walk, it's easy to get to, and yeah, we put in some miles. Yeah, I think we did five miles. It was hot. Yeah, there's no shade. Bring some water. Yeah, there's no coverage You're out in the sun, but it's beautiful.
We came across like a couple other hikers but for the most part it seems very popular for mountain bikers We didn't see any horses and I wasn't on a horse this time. It was a beautiful park. Fun to do. Get those steps in. So after Santa Fe, we have come back to Minneapolis for a couple of weeks before our departure. It feels like we've been talking about this forever, but that's just kind of how it goes. We got back and we went and stayed in a town called Elko, Minnesota. Down, with my family. And we had basically the most Minnesota fall weekend one could ever have. The leaves were changing. We went to an apple orchard. We went apple picking. We drank cider. Those that could ate apple cider donuts. That's what they're called, right? Correct. Yep. Yep. Seasonal. It was lovely. So where are we now? Some might have heard the sirens in the background. Have, have the church bells gone off? Church bells might have been. We are in an Airbnb in downtown Minneapolis. We are here for another week and a half. And we've really just been like prepping. But we got to distract ourselves with a great dinner with B& D. At Owamni. Which Minneapolis folks know of it. It is a Native American chef. All the dishes are inspired by Native American traditional recipes. It is the only restaurant that I've ever gone to and said, I am gluten intolerant, what can I not order? And they were like, you can order everything because Native Americans use corn. Yeah. In everything. They didn't use wheat. Wheat was not a thing until... probably the pilgrims started growing wheat, but yeah, that's never happened to me before. That was incredible. It was a very good restaurant. Hard to get into. Very hard. But very good, nonetheless. So after, this week we go back to B and D's, where we are gonna be staying with them before we leave for Australia on the 11th of October.
Yes. It's been a crazy past couple of days in less than two weeks we are leaving for Sydney. And from there we'll head out to, New Zealand and, things will change a bit.
Our remaining time here in the U. S. is going to go by very quickly. We are soaking it all up, but we cannot wait to get on the road. Yeah, I think our, our next episode will actually be recorded while we are in Sydney, Australia. We're super excited. We're gonna be there for a week before we head to New Zealand so we're reaching out to our Sydney peeps to meet up, have a meal, have a drink, have a walk. And see as many people as we can halfway around the world. We're excited to finally embark on the trip. And I'm sure you probably all are. I'm sick of hearing us talk about the trip. It's finally happening. It's going to happen.
Alright, Farber, what was your, your love from the past couple of weeks? My love from our travels was conversations with my family members We've we found that a lot of the facts get lost in the sauce over time. And so when there's like family stories you gotta ask a lot of people, and then you kind of take a summary of them all to formulate what we believe is a fact.
Everyone's memory is a tad different. Yeah, but you know, that's, that was my highlight. It was just being able to like, as emotional as it sounds, get deep stories that, we may not be able to, uh, to relive or experience again, so. Yeah, you get that history. Yeah. Yeah, it was very, it was lovely to, Have those conversations with your, family because your family has such a cool, interesting story.
Your grandmother and grandfather were incredible people. Travelers. Traveled all over the world that I, I feel like, it's in your, blood, from them. And so it's, it's very fun I think to, to rehash and, and get those, those very intimate stories about them.
And what they did with their life. All right. That's your love. What about your learn? I learned, a strong facade wouldn't let somebody be emotional, let's say, but leaving family and friends as we go through that process is becoming more difficult than I thought, more difficult than I anticipated. So that was one of a part learn, the other learn, as we prepare for this, and it gets very close, things change, I guess, emotionally things change. And we handle our stress in different ways. And we're learning that through our conversations and Jonica's looking at me with, like, sort of disdain right now. But, it is more of a situation that you're learning more about your partner because you're going through this like major experience and something that's going to be very challenging and how one handles that and internalize it is very different than day-to-day life, going to work, trying to pay the bills. Like those are different things compared to what we are about to embark on. Yeah, not to like downplay obviously any of those things like all of that is very hard but this is a new chapter. Correct. For us. Yes, different emotions. Yeah, and you don't have... those other things. Like, you're becoming much more intertwined, let's say.
Um, and you just need to learn how to deal with that. Yeah, bring it back full circle. Get that will. Just get that taken care of. You know what I'm saying? Dear, what is your love and your learn? So my love, like I said before, was I going to a new state, being able to go to, New Mexico and, see the landscapes and experience the food Christmas style of them, the chilies.
I love the Southwest. I love Utah, I love Colorado, , I love Arizona, and so being able to experience New Mexico, just added to that, the plants, the animals, the sunshine, which we have had basically none of for the last week in Minnesota, which is super depressing, all these things are things that, that I just love, I love the Southwest.
My learn, it's just kind of like a build on something I already knew about myself, but I am a huge introvert, and so these past two weeks, having to have a lot of conversations with a lot of people a lot of the time has been exhausting for me. When we came back, I kind of felt like a shell of myself because I just didn't have any time to myself to be able to recuperate and recharge. And that is something that I have to do. And it's not you, we're very different in that way. You can go, go, go and be social all the time. I simply cannot. So, bopping around to that many different places and, having that many people to connect with on not surface levels, like pretty like deep. It was emotional, yeah. Yeah, emotional topics and conversations. It drained me. I still feel kind of drained. Um, so my learn is that I don't want to bop around that much when we're on this trip, and I don't think that that's our intention or something that we're going to do, I want to be able to be present and be in a place for a while, but also I just, I need my time by myself. It's gonna get real. It's gonna get real.
But we want to thank everybody for listening to episode four. We are coming along. The next episode we will be in a different country, in a different place, in a different time zone, in a different hemisphere. Halfway across the world. So we're looking forward to that. We hope you guys are as well. And we'll catch you on the Oz side next. BYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Alright, so, after getting stuck by a lot of needles, we departed for our next stop on our farewell tour, and that was L. A. So we stayed a few nights with Mark's lovely Aunt Alba in Los Feliz. Amazing neighborhood - always a great time, love seeing her, love going there. We did a number of hikes to the Griffith Park Observatory. Walking around the neighborhood, having great conversations with Alba. Good meals, that's always a big, big thing for us.
So, Farber, what was your favorite part of our Los Feliz visit this time around? We haven't been there in a while. It was good to go back , and see how things had changed, in the past five years or so. The takeaway from my time specifically with Alba and Los Feliz, was coming back in the afternoon watching the sun go down and having a glass of wine and catching up on old stories she had just has great stories so there was really an emotional connection for me because of that.
There's a dispensary half a block away. Amazing professional staff and efficient and quick. In LA there's tons of dispensaries, but this was a nice one. Yeah, it was very lovely. And then one, like, off topic one for me would have been the vegetarian options that are like all available in Cali. Of course. This is not a thing for me, usually I don't seek these, you do, but there was, I had some very amazing vegetarian food which I would have never, you know, tried. Right, you, you always will, if we go out to eat, you'll eat things that I won't cook. Yes. And, which is usually, they're bad for you. They're not healthy. And so yeah, you definitely, you were excited about the yummy. Yeah. Very delicious. Vegetarian, yeah, vegetarian options. Yeah. But yeah, of course it's, LA. I mean, what do you expect? What was yours dear? When we were in LA, what was your, what was your favorite thing?
Alba took us to the Keith Herring exhibit at the broad. The broad is a beautiful building, fairly new, built by this incredibly wealthy man, it's insane. It's like outside of even , the Keith Haring exhibit, they have this permanent collection and you can see the, the storage room of all the other art and just walking around and you're just like, how the hell was this one person's collection? Like, how much money must you have to own all of these works of art? By incredible, a lot of very famous artists. Modern art, too. And, you know, he was, of course, a billionaire. Very philanthropic. Yes, yes, of course. They always are. Well, not always, I guess.
But, yeah, just incredible, incredible collection. The Keith Haring exhibit was, great. Who has not seen Keith Haring, right? Yeah, we've seen a lot of his art. But he really was only an artist and was creating art , for 10 years before he died. We learned a lot about his, story that I hadn't known before. Throughout every single room, they were playing soundtracks that were like his mix tape. And music that he loved, which was incredible. And it brought me back to my, rave days. It was really amazing music, amazing art. And I think you got to see more of his, range. You see a lot of the same stuff with it. You know, the babies and the people and the hearts and stuff like that, but he was starting to evolve before he died at a very young age. I think he what was he 30 or 31? It really affected me, he had some quote talking about how he's like, I've only been doing art for 10 years and it's, it's amazing how much you evolve in such a short period of time. And he was like, imagine if I got to create for 50 years. And he's like, but that doesn't even seem like a possibility like how would I live that long? And that's heavy because it was the peak of the AIDS epidemic right ,which ultimately ended up killing him. You know, he got AIDS and he died from it. And so to be a gay man In the 80s, and your government isn't helping, isn't even really acknowledging that this is an epidemic that needs help for, for far too long, um, was a lot. And so for him to acknowledge that in this quote and realize like, you know, I'm probably not going to live to be that old because of what's going on and because I'm a gay man, it was, it was a lot.
He was a huge proponent of gay rights, though. He was huge! And of LGBTQ rights. He did a lot. He did a lot. I think he was so prolific in like 10 years, from 20 to 30. Yeah. And a lot of it, you could tell, which was a side note, but part of the exhibit was his coming out when he came to New York. And, how much more homoerotic his art became because he was comfortable. Yeah, he, he wasn't shying away from it anymore. Right. I think he finally felt comfortable because, I mean, and he ran in an incredible circle. Madonna. Right, Madonna. Basquiat. Warhol. Yep. Grace Jones. Yep, all the people. Literally.
You know, it's sad. It's very, very sad that he died so early, but it was incredible, I think, to see so much of his work that you don't normally get to see, and I think learn more about him and his story. And the work that he did to try to bring awareness and put a spotlight on what was going on in the world during that time.
On a lighter note…we ate an incredible meal, I will say, at this place, Kismet. It's been around, I think, for a while, but it was just lovely. It's small, it's intimate, everything about it was great. How would you describe the food, the ethnicity of the food generally? I think kind of Middle Eastern, like it reminded me of Shuka in New York, which we used to eat at a lot, and I loved lots of, lots of dips. and things. Pretty healthy - it was great. Great service. Yeah, service was amazing, but yeah, check it out. A lot of my friends who have lived in that part of town, responded positively I guess when I said that I ate there because people love it and I loved it and now I think your aunt will probably go back again. Kismet, Silver Lakes, LA.
