This reminds me.... Anyone want to buy a kayak? I bought it in a phase I was going through, then noticed I don't have any time to enjoy it.
I could see that happening to me as well. Land is very hard to come by around here, though, and when it does, you have to pay over $5k/acre every time, if not significantly more.
Weren't you looking at 13 acres a short while back? Its getting harder to borrow money now but home equity loans used to be an easiest way for most. Believe me for a family its a great investment and its never going to get cheaper, so just bite the bullet and grab your self a piece.
I definitely fall into this category. The only things that never went away were bowhunting and bass fishing. In junior high school it was hunting and guns. Had a best bud who's dad was a great mentor to me and spent a lot of time with me in the woods and teaching me how to reload. They had a 300 yard range right off their back porch, so we would reload and blast away all weekend long. In high school, I was psycho about skateboarding and snowboarding. Thought for sure I was going to be the next Seth Neary or Colin McKay. That fizzled out when I graduated and realized that I was a lot more redneck than I ever wanted to admit. In college it was beer, women, and other things.......I still managed to fit in some hunting and fishing though. After college it was cars. I had more $$$ than I knew what to do with. Ended up building a turbo VW that was trapping 118+mph. Tons of fun, and then I started to realize how finacially stupid cars were. I had enough into that thing to put a small downpayment on a house, so I parted the car out and started getting responsible with my $$$. I can honestly say at this point in my life I have no desire to get back into the car scene, I have better things to do with my $$$. After the car thing, I started to revisit competitive archery. I had competed in some 3D events in junior highschool (been shooting recreationally since I was 6 y/o or so). My dad was a recurve archery coach at Cortland State here in NY, so they had me shooting from a very young age, and it was something I always did recrationally year round, but after a half dozen events in junior high I never really got competitive. I knew I was better than a lot of the guys I shot with and around, so decided to really go for it. Competed at the local level and cleaned house, won a handful of state level 3D events, won a handful of regional level events, took third place in a national level event, and was spanking local guys that were consistently placing top 10 at the national level. I was not a "natural" shooter though like a lot of them, I had to work twice as hard to shoot at that level. There are a lot of guys that just didn't have to shoot that much to compete at that level (Matt/PA is one of those guys). I hit the point where I had won out of the HC and MBR classes, had done really well in the MBO class at the state and regional level, and actually competed in a handful of regional events in Semi Pro, and I realized I just didn't have the time to compete with those guys. I still think I could have been top 10 competitive in the Semi Pro classes if I would have put in the time, but I burned out after about 5 years of being OCD about it. I realized at this point that I would never take something I loved so seriously again. At that same time I still think to myself I'm not done there yet and someday I'll revisit it, maybe I'll get lucky and my soon to arrive son will want to get into it. Kinda weird to read that, I don't want to do anything so seriously again but I feel there is unfinished business there. After the archery craze I started shooting guns more, and actually joined a gun hunting only camp in the Adirondacks. Big woods hunting captured my attention. I still won't hunt with a gun in PA or places that have high deer populations, but the Adirondacks have captured my heart. I still hunt more with a bow, but it's not an exclusive thing anymore like it was for so long. Now two years ago I bought a bass boat, and a few years before that I started fishing some local tournaments. While I've done well in several of them including a handful of pretty big tourneys that had 70+ boats, I just don't have the desire to push it past that. I certainly could, but I don't want to turn fishing into what competitive archery became for me........I need it to stay fun. Not sure how many tourneys I'll fish this year with my son due to arrive on opening weekend of bass season, but I'm sure I'll get out a handful of times this year and I'll enjoy every minute of it. There are so many other things I have dabbled in to some degree as well I didn't put in the original post including trapping, ice fishing, predator hunting, turkey hunting, fly fishing (or any kind of trout fishing), pike fishing, etc. I'm sure I'm missing a ton more.
Matt, I have to wonder. Do you think the guys shooting 1000s of arrows a week, and competing as serious as they are, are enjoying it fully? I have to wonder.
Yeah, I still haven't made the move yet. It's not for sale, I would just be approaching the owner with the intent to buy, but I want to save enough to be able to make the offer and be ready to go with 20-25% down min if she decides to go for it. At least there's some time on my side in this instance.
It's fun when your winning. It's not fun when your a hair away from winning and you know you can do better but can't do it due to time or $$$.
I'm kinda flighty on my list of "must do" items. I'm 61 and still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. My wife says that my hobbies are expensive. Motorcycles, Guns, Guitars, Archery, Horses and the list goes on and on. I am consistent with her though. 40 years but she is not a hobby; she is a lifetime. :-) RC
