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

  Ricketts Glen State Park, Pennsylvania  During my wife and myself’s 14 year long residence in the state of Pennsylvania , we got to experience many wonderful places in the state.  We loved the rolling hills, the verdant farmlands of Lancaster County , the mysterious and guarded Amish peoples, as well as the beautiful DuPont family homes and gardens, but one of our favorite places in all of Pennsylvania, may possibly be Ricketts Glen State Park . We have many fond memories of the park as we hiked there with our dog Toby, with family, and with our friends.  Each time we visited and hiked the wonderful trails with a waterfall to be seen every 5 minutes, we got a new appreciation for the beauty of the park.   We all enjoyed getting a heck of a workout traversing down the Falls Trail then taking a break by dipping our toes in the still refreshing and sometimes cold waters of Kitchen Creek  even during the heat of the summers.  Toby used to get scared s...

  Monument Valley, AZ/UT As an immigrant from South Korea, I was always in awe of the sheer size of the United States.  I couldn’t put my mind around how big this country is, especially coming from a small country like South Korea, which is roughly the size of Kentucky, maybe slightly smaller than Kentucky. I was too young (age 9) when my family moved to the United States, so I barely got farther than the capital city region of Seoul .  When I went back to visit South Korea in my twenties, I did get to drive all the way south to Busan from Seoul, which gave me a pretty good idea of the size of the country. That drive, took roughly 5 hours with some traffic along the way.  It almost reminded me of driving from New York City to Washington D.C.   Driving in South Korea is one thing, but nothing is quite like driving on the gigantic landmass that is the United States.  Nothing really prepares you for it.  Even when we drove in Europe to explore Germany an...