Planning – When do we leave?

In spite of all the conveniences that the digital world brings, I find myself on the floor surrounded by maps and the atlas, making notes on a yellow pad.  Charting out the next three months seems very overwhelming.  

I start with the month one goal; get to California before March 1.   Month 2 goal is easy, sit on the beach in Cabo.  Month three is really the one that I get the most excited for, up the coast of California, to the wine country and then to Paradise to meet up with my nieces and nephew.  From there we head back to the coast and follow the ocean all of the way to Portland where we will meet our good friends.  Capping the adventure will be the magnificent trek through the northern Rockies.   Wow, seems like an amazing retirement adventure to me.  I am feeling very grateful and very excited.  Feels like a dream.

Getting a smooth take off is very important.  We have done a fair amount of travel over the years and it seems that the mood of the first few days seems to set the tone for the whole trip.  Planning for me seems to shake out the early missteps.  I list the major stops between here and California; Waco to see Britt, Albuquerque to see Kris, somewhere in Arizona getting to California before March 1.  Determining the mileage between each of these will help estimate the time needed for travel and help estimate the timing of each major stop.  I want to give our hosts a general idea of the timing of our arrival.  I think that we can get between each major stop in 6 days.  This is really coming together.

MINNESOTA to TEXAS

The First Leg, bringing us to Waco.  I really want to get as far from the cold as soon as possible so the first day needs to be a big travel day.  Looking at a 450 mile radius from Minnesota I see Kansas City.   Hmmm… ribs, for me, food is right up there on the list of important things in life to enjoy.   Seems like a good first stop.  I will get a couple of ideas for great BBQ from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

Looking on the map for interesting places to see, I notice the marker for Hot Springs National Park.   That sounds like an interesting stop.  It is a little out of the way but that is what this adventure is all about.  We will want to spend some time here so I think two nights makes sense.  It looks like we can find plenty to do.

The direct path from Hot Springs, AR to Texas is less than 400 miles.   I would like to take a less traveled path and leave the final decision on the exact roads to the night before we leave Arkansas.  I do want to plan for two days though, just to give us time to explore.

If we want to get to Waco by the weekend, we will want to leave on Monday.  Yea!   We will plan to leave very early, to get out of town before rush hour.   Although, with temp expected to be -23, we  may be the only people out on the road.  Lucky us!

Preamble – The Last Box

The last box is sealed and loaded on the truck.  I walk through the house for one last check.   I pause briefly in the door of each room, remembering the moments that brought us here.  Thirty five years is a long time to live in any one place. 

First home and first occupants we were destined to be a good fit, this house and us.  Just married and with no money many rooms were empty for a long time.  Slowly they were filled, first with dogs, then beautiful babies.  Bounties of family and friends helped us fill the house with love, laughter and some tears.  Good home, good life. 

WOW, What a Winter!

Having planned a 3 month “get-away”, we were thinking that we would miss winter this year.   OK, so not so much.  It goes without saying for anyone living through this, that the winter is hard.  It seems that we started with early snow followed by early cold, then more snow and really cold.

SNOW

A small snowfall can really snarl rush hour.  I admit, I take a small amount of perverse pleasure in listening to the traffic report.  I did drive through the nonsense that the snow provided us in December.  That was plenty.

New snow makes the woods even more magical.  Highlighting every branch of every tree.  The only sound is the squeak of your boots. 

COLD

Nothing works when it is really cold.  Not the garage door, not the car.  Who knew that the “gas” would leak out of those little shock absorber looking things that open the hatch of your SUV.  Who knew that door was so heavy!

Two more days,  then we blow this Popsicle stand!

RETIRED?

So we have been talking about “retiring” at the end of the year since about, um,  last January.  So here we are, a year later, retired.   Not exactly sure what that means but based on what I have read on the subject of retirement, it is what we “make” it.  That feels like more pressure than I was expecting.  After 50+ years of thinking through the consequences of every single decision, I was hoping that I could just let retirement happen.

I was never one to back off of an opportunity to over-think anything so here we go.    We quit our jobs, closed our businesses, sold our house and moved the belongings we had to have to our “yet to be finished” cabin.   Now one would think that this would be a good time to finish that cabin, but not us!   We opt instead for a RETIREMENT RE-BOOT.

Something like a month long road trip followed by a month in Mexico and wrapped up with another month on the road.

This blog, is another grandiose idea.  We will have to see how they both work out. 

I am not sure that this is an idea which is over-thought but it is for sure that we are not moving gently into retirement.