Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Our Costco dividend check arrived this week. It's for $55.50. That's less than last year's $68 rebate and way less than the nearly $114 we earned in 2023. But still, $55 is nice, right? Welllll....

This $55.50 isn't free money. We paid to get this money. We paid $60 for Costco Executive Membership. So we actually lost $4.50!



This rebate is the big selling point of executive membership. Costco charges an extra $65 (now; up from $60 last year) for this elite tier of membership and, in return, gives you 2% back on all Costco purchases, except gasoline.

I'm sure for many families it's a win. I know because I see them in the checkout lines with their carts full to the rim. Meanwhile we virtually never have more than 1 layer of items resting in our cart. The previous two years we came out ahead on the deal. This year we paid our money and came out a bit short.

Coincidentally our Costco membership is up for renewal right now. I'm of two minds about whether to re-up at the executive level.

• On the one hand, it wasn't worth it this year. We lost a few dollars. Even last year, it didn't pay off hugely. We only netted $8 on the deal.


• On the other hand, coming up $4.50 short at the end of the year isn't anything to get upset about. It's not even milkshake money nowadays. And maybe next year we'll earn more. Though the ante has been raised. Membership is now $65 for basic tier plus an extra $65 for executive.

Right now I think I'm leaning toward renewing. There is one perk to executive membership I'm eager to try out.... Executive members get earlier shopping hours at Costco! 🤣 I haven't availed myself of that elites-only benefits yet— mostly because every time I've planned on doing it I decided I'd rather sleep in instead and deal with the crowds at the store later in the day. 🤣 But maybe this coming year I'll drag myself out of bed early to play Let's Go Shopping!

Were you the kind of cruel kid who watched seasonal cartoon specials like It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and thought, "Mmm-mmm, that overgrown gourd's gonna make one hell of a good pumpkin pie when I kill it and bake it!" 😈 ...Okay, no, I wasn't that kind of cruel kid either. But now that I've thought of the joke I wish I were. 🤣

Anyway, tonight we were at Costco and found that now that Halloween is over, indeed the Great Pumpkin indeed was caught, killed, and baked.



Hawk and I were going to buy other kinds of sweets, probably his- and hers packages of cookies, but then we saw this huge pie— for a hugely cheap price. It's 2.5x the size of a typical supermarket bakery pumpkin pie for half the price.

You could easily slice 12 decent servings from this one pie.

We're not 12 people though, nor even 6. Since it's just the two of us I promptly parted the pie into thirds once we got home and packed two the chunks away in the freezer. The remaining one-third I left in the fridge.



...Well, minus one-quarter of the last one-third. That went onto my plate and into the microwave to warm up for dessert tonight.

Oregon Cascades Travelog #1
Klamath Falls, OR - Tue, 1 Jul 2025, 00:20am

It's like Friday Night Halfway... except on Monday! We hit the road Monday afternoon after work to get a jump start on our 4th of July vacation. We're headed to Bend, Oregon for several days. Tonight we've gotten as far as Klamath Falls; thus the Friday Night Halfway comparison.

With getting 8 hours of driving behind us, though, it's technically more like 3/4 of the way there. But I call it halfway because it's more lyrical. Would Bon Jovi's 1986 hit Livin' on a Prayer have been as successful if the band had crooner, "Woah we're 3/4 of the way there"?

Oh, but the map above/right shows 6 hours not 8, right? Yeah, that doesn't include traffic or stops for dinner and gas. The drive of 387 miles took us almost 8 hours. We left just before 4pm and arrived at the hotel at a quarter to midnight. Along the way we stopped in Fairfield/Vacaville[1] for dinner[2], Red Bluff for ice cream and a bathroom stop, and Redding for gas[3].

[1] Yes, there's a town in California that's named "Cow town" in Spench. Or is it Espançois? Frañol?

[2] We ate dinner at Del Taco, a fast-food chain restaurant we kind of make a point of visiting when we're outside our home area as there aren't any near us. You could call it a guilty pleasure but that's a misnomer because we feel no guilt about it. I'll be happy to explain why it's a slightly odd pleasure, but it won't be a guilty explanation.

[3] We drove 30 more miles from Red Bluff to Redding before filling up on gas because (a) I wanted to run the tank reasonably far down before filling to stretch the time 'til the next fill up and (b) there's a Costco in Redding, where a fill up saved us over $10 versus buying gas in Red Bluff.

So, we're at our hotel for the night. It's a Days Inn that looks a bit dowdy from the outside, though the rooms are... slightly... nicer on the inside. And it's less than half what the local Holiday Inn Express was asking. It's quiet— even the two vagrants outside are politely minding their own business, quietly— and the bed's very comfortable to stretch out on. Those are the two main thing I ask for right now.

The drive this evening was a long one, especially on a day when I'd gotten up at 4:45am (dratted neighbor's howling new puppy). But the good news is there's less driving for Tuesday. It should be an easy 2.5 hours to Bend. And that's the point of a Friday Night Halfway. Even if it is on Monday.

Our Costco dividend check arrived this week. It's for $68 and change. That's disappointingly less than last year's nearly $114 but at least is still enough to more than break even on the $60 premium we pay for Costco Executive membership vs. the basic Costco Gold.



BTW, the way the $68 is figured is it's 2% of our purchases at Costco, excluding gasoline. I figure our dividend is way down this year because we didn't really make any big-ticket purchases. Though we do continue to shop at Costco regularly.

A few days ago I posted about the bottle of Piñaq liqueur I bought at Costco. I bought the pre-mixed passion fruit cocktail on a whim, largely because of the bespoke pineapple-shaped bottle. ...Which was kind of strange because it's made with passion fruit, not pineapple. But whatever, it's really catchy. 🤣



Thursday I opened it and poured a drink for myself and friends. We liked it. I liked it so much that I poured another drink for myself that evening. And then poured a drink or two for myself each of the next few nights. Which led to... after a couple drinks on Tuesday night it was gone. 😰

From unopened to finished in 6 days— that's the fastest I've ever torn through a bottle of liquor! ...Of course, this wasn't 80 proof liquor. It was just under half that strength, at 34 proof (17% alcohol). That matters because it means 2 shots is a serving. I was pouring drinks with about 80ml of the liqueur plus mixer. The math is not hard... 750ml ÷ 80ml per drink is only a bit over 9 drinks. With one for me, one for thee, then several more for me... well, that's how it lasted just 5½ days.

Would I buy Piñaq again? Uncertain. While I certainly enjoyed it, it's a question of enjoyment for the price. The bottle cost over $20. That's not breaking the bank— and is just over $2 per drink, plus the cost of mixer, following my math above. Even so, it seems like at that price I should try other liqueurs, too. Plus, I'm not sure I can buy this again! When I was at another Costco over the weekend I looked for the pineapple-shaped bottle and found none. It's unclear if this was a very limited quantity item Costco had or if it's a product one store manager might choose to stock while another chooses not to. Well, if I'm at Costco again this weekend I'll look against and least consider buying more.

As of this morning I'm caught up on blogging about my trips to Los Cabos and Phoenix. Yes, I returned last Sunday. Yes, that means I fell 6 days behind in blogging. Does this mean my blog backlog is cleared? Haha, no. I've still got I-don't-know-how-many entries from New Zealand I still want to publish.

Something you may have noticed for its absence in my blogs about traveling in Mexico is a trip to Costco. After visiting a Costco in Australia last December and then every Costco in New Zealand in April (there's just one ðŸ˜‚)I feel like "Visit a Costco in every foreign country I visit" is now a thing I'm supposed to do. Except it's not a thing; not like a mission, anyway. It's at most curiosity. And I only do it if/when it's convenient.

Could I have visited a Costco in Mexico, without going too far out of my way? Yeah. There was one just outside of Cabo San Lucas, along the main road down from San Jose. But since we didn't have a car and it was much too far to walk, going there would've meant paying for a round trip with Uber in addition to carving out the time for it. With nothing specific we actually wanted to shop for there, it wasn't worth the cost or time.

Since I restarted my beer tasting project recently I figured I could also restart liquor tasting. ...Well, I don't have a specific "project" for liquor tasting. I'm just always curious whenever I have two (or more) bottles of the same kind of liquor, "What do these taste like compared to each other?" In this comparison I sampled two vodkas that many people think are very similar: Costco's Kirkland Signature French vodka and Grey Goose French vodka.

"Okay, how are those two similar?" you might wonder. One comes from a respected French distiller and has long been recognized as a top-shelf vodka. The other comes from Costco, the warehouse store best known for discount prices on this sold in huge quantities, like one-gallon jars of mustard.

What the two have in common is that a lot of Costco fans think Kirkland vodka is actually made by Grey Goose!

A Mystery Manufacturer

Costco doesn't have its own distilleries so it white-labels liquor produced by other makers. The Kirkland brand is thus similar to a lot of other store brands, where a name-brand manufacturer makes an item on the same production line as their name-brand product and puts it in an off-brand package. White-labeling is common in consumer products and usually it's unremarkable... when it's socks or allergy pills. But the idea that a luxury goods maker is behind a product that sells super cheap really fires up some people's curiosity.

It's not established fact that Grey Goose makes Kirkland vodka. It's merely popular suspicion. In fact, Grey Goose officially denies it! But that doesn't convince some Costco fans. It makes sense that a luxury goods maker would deny such a thing anyway. It'd harm their brand value if it were well know consumers could buy virtually the same product for less than half the cost.

Costco is tight-lipped about who makes their French vodka. Part of that's got to be contractual terms. Whoever the maker is, Grey Goose or anyone else, doesn't want their brand value reduced by people knowing the same stuff is available for a fraction of the price under a different name at Costco. Part of it is presumably also Costco adding to the mystique of its in-house brand.

Time for the Test of Taste!

I bought a bottle of Kirkland vodka some time ago to give it a try. It's a solid vodka that punches well above its lower-middle range price. Then I was re-gifted a bottle of Grey Goose. I figured it's time to put them head to head!

For this comparison I tasted the two vodkas neat. You can see in the picture above/left I simply poured them into shot glasses. I then alternated sips.

Overall the two vodkas are very similar. I can see why so many Costco fans wonder if Kirkland vodka really is Grey Goose. In tasting them side-by-side like this I found that the tastes are not exact. They're very close, but not identical.

That doesn't rule out that they're produced by the same maker, of course. It makes sense that if Grey Goose does make Kirkland vodka, they alter the recipe slightly. Again, though, Grey Goose denies they produce Kirkland Signature French vodka.

So, what's the difference? I actually liked the Kirkland Signature vodka better! The two have a very similar character, but Kirkland has a rounder character to its flavor while Grey Goose's delivers a sharper alcohol burn.

A few weeks ago I read in one of my usual haunts on FlyerTalk.com about a new (to me) variety of Rao's pasta sauce. Rao's basic marinara sauce has been a fan favorite among Costco fans for quite some time. I've tried it myself and have been... underwhelmed.

"It tastes like a basic marinara sauce I'd make myself," I lamented to the fan group.

"Yes, that's the entire point!" they assured me. "It's the most like homemade!!11!"

But here's the thing.... For 3x the price of other brands of jarred sauce at Costco, I'd rather actually make homemade. Making marinara sauce isn't even hard.

Thus I was skeptical about this newly available variety, Rao's Homemade Calabrian Chili Marinara. But I have a rule about food: don't hate it 'til you try it.



By the way, Rao's Calabrian Chili variety is even more expensive than their basic stuff. Ounce for ounce this stuff comes out to almost 4x the price of Prego or Classico marinara sauce when Costco has it on sale.

But how did it taste?



I tried it first with a basic pasta. In the bowl (photo above) are gemelli noodles, Rao's Calabrian sauce, and shredded Parmesan cheese. Curious this is a Costco trifecta. The pasta, sauce, and cheese are all from Costco! (The bread with garlic and melted mozzarella cheese you see in the opposite corner is pretty much all ingredients bought at Safeway.)

I've got to say, for all the ambivalence I have about Rao's basic marinara sauce, I am impressed by how good their Calabrian marinara tastes. The Calabrian chilies have a nice, medium-low spice burn. They don't bite at all upfront but provide a nice, sustained heat. Underneath that the sauce has a brighter tomato flavor than Rao's basic variety. I like that aspect of it, too.

As I write this I've now had 4 or 5 dinners with Rao's Calabrian marinara. So far the simplest is the best. After trying it with spinach and cheese ravioli (also bought at Costco!) I've come back to basic pasta garnished with Parmesan cheese.

Australia Travelog #18
Casula, NSW - Wed, 27 Dec 2023, 6:30pm

You're in a foreign country. You're 7,500 miles from home. You've got a car and a free hour in your schedule. What do you do? ...You go to Costco! 🤣



The funny thing is we didn't need anything at Costco. I'm not sure many people ever need to buy mustard a gallon at a time, ever. But going to Costco is always at least partly about the novelty of going to Costco. And even more so about satisfying my curiosity. How different would Costco in Australia be from the US?

It was by the same token that I ate at a McDonald's in Japan, once, on my first visit to the country. I wanted to see, first hand, how different it was. Would the burgers be different? Would there be weird things on the menu? Would the fries be 1/3 the size of the monstrous portions served in the US?

We'd already spotted a few differences in common American brands in Australia. For example, Burger King here is called Hungry Jack. It's a trademark issue. I haven't been quite curious enough to try eating at one to see how the food differs. It was enough to satisfy my curiousity looking at the menu and seeing Whoppers; I didn't need to buy one or eat it. Ditto McDonald's— which is actually called McDonald's, though all the locals refer to it as "Maccas".

Anyway, today the cultural comparison study is Costco.

Just finding a Costco was a bit of a challenge. I know there are Costcos in Australia... but Costco's app doesn't.



The Costco app says the nearest store is in Kauai, Hawaii, US... over 5,000 miles away!

We had to resort to finding a Costco using Google Maps. There are three around Sydney, and one's right along our route from our last hiking trek (Carrington Falls, previous entry in this series) to our hotel tonight in the Blue Mountains. So it seems worth a brief visit— in the name of cultural learning. 🤣

So, what's different? Surprisingly little, it turns out.

1. For starters, just entering the store is the same experience. There's one door, beneath their big logo (see first photo above), and door checkers checking ID cards.

I showed the gal in the uniform my digital ID card, and she didn't know what to do with it.

"Oh, it's US only," I volunteered. "That's probably why it thinks the nearest Costco is 5,000 miles away in Hawaii."

"Kauai!!!" the person standing next to her shouted, unprompted, with a knowing laugh.

2. Inside the store, the layout is the same. There are basically two layouts to Costcos, the clockwise layout and the counterclockwise layout. This Casula, NSW, AU store is the counterclockwise type.

3. Most of the brands and items are the same. This one surprised me the most. I thought that 7500 miles away, on a different continent halfway around the world, Costco would have to source different brands for a lot of stuff. I mean, it's obvious that popular worldwide brands are worldwide, so it's not surprising that the same Sony headphones are sold everywhere. Nor is it surprising that food made by international conglomerates is branded and packaged similarly worldwide. Like, Ghirardelli Chocolates, which you might think of as eponymous with San Francisco (they opened their first store here in 1850), is actually owned by Swiss conglomerate Lindt, so the two chocolates brands are sold alongsde each other around the world now. (I guess the only surprise there would be if you thought Ghirardelli was still a local business instead of part of an international conglomerate.) But I was surprised to see 90%+ of the same Kirkland brand products, including frozen foods.

3½. Even Costco's food court is mostly the same. Largely the same products and same sizes. Only the prices are different...



Eagle-eyed Costco loyalists will be, like, "LOLWUT? $1.50 hot dog combo is now $1.99?!?! Could this be iNfLaTiOn?!?!" Nope, it's just currency differences. Australian Costco's $1.99 AUD hot dog combo is the equivalent of $1.36 USD. So really it's a bargain compared to our classic buck-fifty... though there's the question of how much less an "ALL PORK" hot dog is worth compared to US Costco's all-beef variety. (And, seriously, who advertises "ALL PORK"? Like, what's that better than? "NOW ONLY 50% SOYBEAN"?)

Our Costco dividend check arrived this week. Woohoo, almost $114!

We get this dividend for being Costco Executive Members. The gist of executive membership is simple: we pay an extra $60 a year (on top of the $60 basic membership) and we earn 2% cash back every year for our purchases at Costco (not including their gasoline stations).



With this check for nearly $114 we earned back well more than our $60 investment. That's gratifying because last year our rebate was only $51— and I seriously considered canceling. I figured even though that $51 only reflected 9-10 months of rebates, our annualized rate would barely break even with the membership cost. But then in January this year we made a few bigger shopping runs at Costco and decided the executive membership would likely be worth it this year. Even so, $114 is more than we thought we'd earn.

I've always held doubts in my mind about the value of shopping at Costco. We're a small household, just two of us.... Is it really worth it to buy the larger sizes that most things at Costco come in? And to pay a membership for for doing so? That goes double when paying twice the price for executive membership. With this oversized rebate I have more confidence it's a smart decision.