Moab and Expensive Toys

This last weekend was memorial day weekend (shout out to those no longer with us and also to my father and all other vets who have served). It was also the 40th birthday for a friend of ours and we celebrated with a huge group camping trip to Moab, Utah. It was a blast to share a camp fire with some old friends and a great weekend overall. The trip started off rocky when my oldest boy ate only a doughnut for breakfast and promptly got sick as we headed over the mountain passes (nice move dad) but he immediately recovered and we made it to our campsite which had a pretty breathtaking view of Fisher Towers:

Hell’s Revenge

The first full day after we arrived, I planned a hike with the boys but my lady was not arriving until the following day and wanted to do the hike with us.  I hung up the phone wondering what we should do instead and looked out my windshield directly at an ATV rental shop and then into the back seat at some really excited faces who had already seen it.  The $300 price tag for a 5 hour rental was tough to swallow but since we were spending virtually nothing to camp I figured that we had some room in the budget and did a post FI splurge.  Ripping around on slick rock with a 900cc go cart proved to be pretty awesome and the ATV crowd was an eclectic mix.  We saw parents with a newborn strapped to the ATV, many confederate flags, and some insane homespun off road machines. 

We worked our way up from some easier trails to moderate and then finally decided that we were ready for a trail called “Hell’s Revenge.”  There were a few times where I thought %$#* we are going to die but what I said out loud was, hold on boys little bump here.  On the trail we saw one guy flip over when his front wheel went into a little sink hole and the rest of the buggy kept going.  We also saw a guy in a pickup truck chicken out half way up a hill and just stop, which is about the worst thing that you can do.  After his buddy towed him out of the way, we sped up the hill with relative ease and I thought, I bet there is a metaphor here about following through once you’ve committed.  There were also many things that we wisely did not commit to doing like the Black Hole for example:

Timing and Creative Flexibility

Being next to two national parks during a holiday weekend was an interesting lesson in timing being a currency because Arches was literally closed for a half day to anyone trying to enter due to the high crowds.  The line of cars to enter was stretching onto the highway causing a hazard so they just put up gates for a half day barring entrance.  We have been before, but I felt bad for anyone who drove 10 hours just to see it and found the gate blocked.  Similarly, Canyon Lands had a 2 hour plus wait to enter.  National Parks have a special designation but it is not like the awesomeness just arbitrarily ends at the boundary of the park.  While thousands waited in queues, we hiked Portal Overlook which is less than 1/4 mile away from Arches.  We saw only 2 people the whole way up.  At the top, we had this spectacular view into Arches across the canyon:

Even Prickly Pear was in bloom and we saw yellow, pink, purple, red and white flowers on the hike:

Expensive Toys

Moab is an outdoors paradise with world class mountain biking, climbing, hiking, rafting, and off roading all in a few mile stretch.  As we returned to camp after that ATV adventure, I was feeling a tinge guilty about my $300 splurge but reassured by the fact that it proved to be a really interesting and cool experience.  I was also looking around at all the expensive toys that we passed next to each camp site on the way.  $80,000 RVs, $60,000 Sprinter vans, $5000 mountain bikes, $18,000 Rzr XP ATVs.  Sometimes people make fun of me camping with my $30 Coleman tent or my junky car with 170K miles on it.  However, I do make it happen. 

I wonder what the cost is of all those toys vs the benefit.  I’ve heard it said that one should spend on the things that are important to them and cut spending in areas that are not.  This makes sense.  However, I also wonder about cost per use and whether we are buying the thing, or the idea of the thing and what it means for our lifestyle.  By buying this $5K mountain bike it may also mean that I am outdoorsy, this is important in my life, and I am going to be a good mountain biker (at least according to the marketing).  However, I may actually only mountain bike 10 times per year.  If the bike lasts 10 years was it worth $50 per ride?  If it is the idea of the thing that we are buying, can we get that for much cheaper?  I will not claim to have the ultimate answer but I do know a CEO that owns a boat that he has never used.  He is time poor and cash rich and owning the boat always gives him the option of boating even if he never has the time to or makes the choice to do so. Weird!

I thought about this a bit more on my drive home from Moab.  We live in a fairly affluent neighborhood that kind of gentrified around us after we bought.  As an experiment, I went outside this morning and spent 5 minutes going around taking some pics of the things neighbors had not put back into storage after the weekend:   

I am certain that many of my neighbors are financially savvy and can afford these things.  At the same time, I read recently that 42% of Americans have less than $10K in savings. I am also aware that often the ostentatious are one step from bankruptcy.  

I had a great time with family and friends playing around in Moab.  While dropping 3 Franklins on renting the ATV was livin’ large for me, at least I didn’t spend $18K buying one, then having to pay to trailer and haul it around, store it, repair it, and maintain it. Value in life is in the eye of the beholder I guess. Sometimes you are buying a thing and sometimes it’s the promise of a lifestyle.

What do you think?  I would love to hear your comments below