From today’s Economist Espresso:
The valuation of Stripe reached $95bn in its latest funding round, the highest of any privately held startup in America, and more than either Facebook or Uber before they went public. The online payments processor raised $600m of new equity from investors including Allianz, AXA, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity and Sequoia Capital.
I think Stripe is a great company and one I would love to invest in. Rather than getting into the public markets, the upside potential here will be locked in even longer to only those limited VC’s and those with access. 🤨
Final day of driving today with the home stretch to Minnesota! 🙌
2:00a Daylight savings time takes an hour.
6:31a Left Liberty, MO.
7:58a Entered Iowa!
11:09a In Minnesota!
12:34p Home! 🏡
Today is the longest segment on our drive back home.
Over an hour driving through extremely dense fog.
5:31a MT Left Moriarty, New Mexico as of on Central Time.
5:55a Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show. 🎶
8:55a CT Entered Texas.
9:58a Gas stop at Loves with crazy wind.
11:49a Enter Oklahoma.
4:19p Enter Kansas.
8:10p Drive-thru at Culver’s in Liberty, MO.
8:15p Check-in at Home2 Suites in Liberty.
Long day! One final jaunt tomorrow to home!
I can’t wait to sing Wonderwall with my fellow MN United fans soon! ⚽️🎉
Today we end our Arizona Escapades and start the long trip back home to Minnesota! We have had a great time here. 🤩 445 miles today.
Honda Pilot is packed!
9:48a Left Scottsdale.
Kids doing classes on Google Meet while driving.
1:55p Entered New Mexico.
2:30p Stop for gas in Gallup, NM.
5:00p Dinner at Green Jeans with Amore Neapolitan Pizza and Nitro Fog ice cream. 🍕🍦
6:30p Check into Best Western in Moriarty, NM.
Vecina
For our final dinner in Phoenix we went to Vecina and had an incredible meal. The food was so flavorful and incredibly presented. We shared everything and did a tasting dinner. We started with the SalsaTrio which had an incredible Habanero salsa. We also had the Karaage which tasted amazing. For a salad we had the Shaved Brussel which tasted amazing and was super finely sliced. We also tried the Mesquite Grilled Cauliflower which was packed with flavor and a little kick. For mains we had the Skirt Steak Tacos, Carnitas Empanada, and the Tylauda. We were honestly expecting the portions to be smaller. We simply had too much food but it was all so delicious. Challenged with stomach capacity we still wanted to try the famous Banana Bread which is served warm with a sauce and a peanut butter ganache. Wow. 🤤
Nemesis Club: Evil Robots
For our final day in Arizona we decided add an Escape Room to the agenda. Tammy researched this and she wasn’t planning on doing one, but the Evil Robot room at the Nemesis Club seemed too good to pass up. She was totally right! 🤩
The Nemesis Club was the most well done escape room experience we have ever done. Everything was extremely well done, even the entrance and how they welcomed you was special. The room itself was so intricate and immersive that you really felt like you were there. The electronics were flawless. There were a lot of screens and videos and everything was exceptional. We also loved that the puzzles were not the same run of the mill digits to a lock but were more creative, yet solvable.
We solved the room with 31 seconds to spare! This is a “must do” experience! 👏 Room 34!
Hiking Camelback Mountain
Today was our final day for hiking in Arizona and we decided to end with the big one, Camelback Mountain! The Cholla Trail is closed right now, so it was easy to pick the Echo Canyon Trail. This was the hardest hike I’ve ever done by a pretty big margin. In fact, both Tammy and I felt most of the hike was really more of a scramble over boulders. We took a steady pace up. Tammy would get ahead of me and wait for me to catch up. The hike up took 73 minutes, ascending 1,317 feet over 1.37 miles.
I always feel like going down on steep trails is harder than going up, but for Camelback you are going down such a steep rate that it is more like climbing down rocks so you are using your hands to brace. I found going down easier than I expected. I did slip on loose gravel at one point and fell down. I was fine, but it was cool to see my Apple Watch accurately detect the fall. It took me 68 minutes to descend.
The trail has two sections with handrails installed to help you get up and down.
Second section of handrail with Tammy hanging out for me to arrive.
This gives some sense of what the ascent is like.
Looking back and seeing other hikers coming up the trail.
The trail curves around and climbs up on the ridgeline.
Looking back along the trail.
More hikers ascending up the steep boulders.
The trail just goes up for as long as you can see.
Tammy and I at the Summit of Camelback! 🏆
Selfie with Phoenix way below me.
Techies who Peloton First Ride
When Minnestar decided to launch these “Techies who …” communities I was really excited to get a Peloton group setup! As if by design, Peloton also just launched their brand new scheduled session feature that works perfect for this. So we are getting our very first ride scheduled, and I thought it would be fun to do it on St. Patrick’s day!
If you are a Peloton Cyclist join our first Techies Who Peloton ride! 🚴
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Let’s do our very first ride on St. Patricks Day at 5:30pm with a 30-minute EDM ride with Jess King! 🎉 Join the class! 🗓 If that link doesn’t work please try another device or another time. It should open into the Peloton iOS app and allow you to sign up for the scheduled session. If it opens in a browser it will give you a beta feature message.
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Tag yourself to join our community and add the MInnestar tag to your Peloton profile! 🏷
UTV in The Rolls
We have always thought it would be fun to rent a UTV and go out for some trail riding. We gave American Powersport Rentals a call and Duke got us all set up. We rented for a half day and were complete newbies but had a great time. We drove to the Rolls OHV Area in the Tonto National Forest. We didn’t have the electrical hookup for the trailer so I was happy it was only 15 miles of straight driving.
Here is our route for the day, you can also see the official trail map.
We got the Teryx4 out in the Pobrecito staging area and took off.
Before taking off with our helmets, goggles and masks on for dust.
The dust wasn’t too bad so we ditched the masks.
Me having a lot of fun.
Navigating and figuring out where we are heading.
Trails were awesome. Some fast, some really rocky, and a lot of pebbles you could tear around in.
Our stop at Palo Fierro for a break.
On 1863 at Stop 2 taking the wheel after Tammy gave it a go.
Family selfie! Mazie is having more fun than she looks in the picture.