Weekend DYI- Roasting Coffee Beans

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We recently started roasting our own coffee beans because Louis discovered a wholesale coffee shop called Sweet Maria’s located in Oakland, California. It turns out roasting your own coffee beans at home is very easy, it only takes about 15-30 minutes per batch and the taste is amazing! The roasting process has taught us so much about different varieties of coffees, the roasting techniques and ways of coffee trading.

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Our roasting set up. We purchased a digital thermometer on Amazon to provide more accurate temperature gauging. 

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MTB Trail Report- Arroyo Trabuco – Tijeras Creek Loop

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The Quick and Dirty:
Location – Starting off at the south end of O’Neill Regional Park on Mesa trail, the Arroyo Trabuco – Tijeras Creek loop takes you around the city of Ranch Santa Margarita. See route on geoladders.com.
Distance – It is roughly a 14-mile loop if you don’t miss the turnout to Tijeras Creek like we did.
Terrain Type – Mix of double track and single track.  Rocky stretches, creek crossings, wood stretches and sand.
Difficulty – Good for beginner-intermediate mountain biking with a few climbs where I had to descend my bike and walk up the hill
Best Time – Year-round, there are a few stream crossings that can get quite deep after a big rain storm. Personally, I do think spring is the best time to see this trail, because everything was still lush from the recent rain events.
Parking- Parking at O’Neill park’s main lot is not free, we park on El Camino Montana Road parallel to the Mesa Trail.

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Chasing the sunlight at the end of the ride

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Budgeting for Travel

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Over the last few years, we have tried to take advantage of our vacation days to travel as much as our job and budget allows. People are always surprised when they find out how many places we’ve visited and ask how we can afford to travel without jeopardizing our raining day fund and retirement savings. Here are some things we do to help us budget our travel each year. Continue reading →

5 Useful Tips for Souvenir Shopping

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When traveling to a new place, most of us are bound to purchase souvenirs as a reminder of the special places we’ve been to. Unfortunately, not all souvenirs are created equal. I can attest to this since I’ve got a few laying around the house collecting dust. Here are some useful tips to purchasing souvenirs for both yourself, friends and family. Continue reading →

MYOG: Back Country “Sound System”

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Quick and Dirty
Cost: none
Difficulty (1-10): 1

What You Need
Cooking pot
Phone with a speaker with your favorite podcast downloaded

I love listening to podcasts and audio books. It was something I picked up during graduate school when I walked 2-3 miles to campus everyday.  This was a great way for me to catch up on current events and books when I wouldn’t have had the time otherwise.

As I graduated school, I continued to listen to my podcasts during our backpacking trips. It’s a way we spend some of our downtime after a long day of hiking. While we were backpacking the Lost Coast trail, we found it hard to hear the audio on my phone since we were camping right on the beach. Louis came up with this brilliant idea of using our 4qt cooking pot as an amplifier. It worked brilliantly on and brought us great entertainment on the trip!

To have your own speaker’s amplifier the next time you are outdoors, all you need is a cooking pot or an enclosed container and your cell phone with a working speaker. Insert the phone into the pot with the speakers facing up and enjoy your favorite podcast without having to carry the extra weight of an external speaker!

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Back country sound system. Suntactics sCharger -5 and Iphone 5C with a 4 qt pot amplifier.

 

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