Bigger and Better Is Picking Up Steam

 

        That my friends is a 5 dollar Gold piece…When I get that coin (not if but when)  I will have crossed the line in the Bigger and Better game I’m playing.    I have installed a new “tab” at the top of my blog page (bigger and better/ care to make a trade?) please keep your eyes on it and jump in any time if you see something you’d be willing to trade me for.    You can read about the first item I traded for here.  When I wrote that piece my initial goal was  to get a coffee house.   That still sounds like a  great idea, but honestly,  there would be logistical problems owning a coffee house, and this gold piece would actually go better with my local history project.  Lyman Dillon was paid $3.00 for each mile he plowed.      To recap what I’m doing.  I  am planning a 100 mile walk the Fall of 08 to retrace a portion of road here in Eastern Iowa called “Old Military Road”.    Lyman  Dillon was hired (in 1839) to plow a furrow to mark that road.  At the time it was on the edge of the  American frontier, so he was literally blazing a trail through uncharted wilderness.    If you stop and think about it, the whole thing is amazing.    This past September I decided to do a one day “dry run” to get the feel for what I was getting myself into.  I am in construction full time and thought, I’m in shape, how hard can it be to walk  15-20 miles in a day.:-)   That day I took a plastic bag along to pick up empty beer cans to pass the time, ended up with over $3.00 worth.  It was while I was walking that the “bigger and better” game idea was hatched.  I’d read about someone who’d kept trading until he got a house....you start out with something small, like a paper clip…let it be known you are looking to trade up….someone is willing to trade you something of greater value…let’s say a pencil….you trade pencil for something better, etc.  until you reach your goal.  Currently I’ve parlayed my $3.00 of empty beer cans  into a $60.00 value   framed  stamp collection. ( photo to be posted in a week or so.) My brother -in-law traded  me the stamp collection  for a  basket with a deer head on it my sister swapped me for the stein.