If We Knew Then What We Know Now

Today, as I write, it is Bob’s 68^th birthday.  I think he’s a bit surprised at the number.  He’s healthy, happy (I hope), and enjoying retirement. 

 It’s been just over 5 months since he retired and we have been having fun.  We promised ourselves we would spend the first year of retirement enjoying ourselves . . . translation, travel as much as we wanted and as long as the money held out.  So far, we have taken three major trips.  Our insight of course is we wish we knew then what we know now!

Our first trip was to Yosemite, or more specifically going down the OR coast, visiting the Redwoods, Napa Valley, San Francisco, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Mt. Shasta, Crater Lake NP, Bend, OR and then coming home. 

Oregon Coast

El Capitan, Yosemite

Crater Lake

  

We were gone 3 ½ weeks, drove 2976 miles, six nights camping, 8 hotel nights, 4 nights on a houseboat (actually a floating box), and one week at a timeshare.  Our insight for that trip . . . don’t try to mix tent camping with a big roadtrip!  We thought it would be good variety to spend a few nights camping but we ended up having to take all our camping gear plus all our regular vacation travel things – too much stuff. 

The trip was from mid-May to mid-June and we needed to plan for all kinds of weather.  It’s not unheard of to get lots of rain along the Pacific NW coastline or snow at Yosemite during late spring.  The car was overloaded and I felt claustrophobic while in the car. 

 

I was constantly trying to organize and sort things out.  The trip was a lot of work!  After all the camping was done we packed up some of the smaller stuff and mailed it home.  That helped with the clutter in the car but we were still just too busy and had way too much stuff!

During the month of July we traveled to Alaska.  We’d been before so this was kind of a hybrid trip, trying to see some of what we’d seen before and also some new territory.  We chose to fly from Seattle to Fairbanks, rent a car and drive south to Denali, Talkeetna, Wasilla, Mat-su Valley, Copper River area near Glenallen, Tok, over to Whitehorse, Yukon (Canada), and re-enter Alaska at Skagway. 

Chena Hot Springs, Alaska

Musk Ox

We dropped the car, hopped on the ferry and spent about twelve days off/on the ferry with at least a couple days visit in each of the towns Juneau, Sitka, Petersburg, and Ketchikan.  We then flew back to SEA from KTN. 

Petersburg Alaska

Whale Tail

The trip was 2109 air miles, 37 hours ferry travel, 1933 driving miles, 3 ½ weeks of being gone.  Exhausting!  Our insight was that we did not build in enough down time.  The distances were great and because there is so much daylight in Alaska in the summer we had some trouble sleeping.  I ended up buying a sleeping mask!  Lack of sleep aside, Alaska is an amazingly vast and beautiful place.  We felt as if we saw lots of country and then we’d look at the map and realize there was so much more to see.  There might be another trip in our future . . . and because we enjoyed the ferry so much we hope to do more.

Our last road trip was across 20 different states, 7648 driving miles, 20 nights staying with family or friends, 20 nights in motels, and we were gone 5 ½ weeks.  We called this trip the “family and friends” road trip.  We actually traveled pretty well despite being in the car a good deal of the time.  Call it America’s Heartland or the Mid-West, either way this land we live in is beautiful, diverse, and BIG.

Utah

Kansas

Lake Michigan

Wisconsin

Wyoming

But we had committed to a schedule and made obligations to be at specific family or friends on particular dates.  So we were always trying to get somewhere and didn’t give ourselves the time to enjoy some of the interesting places we saw.  We didn’t do a lot of “sightseeing” although we saw a lot of things.  Both of us commented that we wished we could just stop, relax, and enjoy an area for a couple days.  It was not to be on this trip so our insight was we needed a vacation within a vacation.  By the way, here’s something to ponder . . . when you are retired are you on vacation if you are off traveling or is it just what you happen to be doing?

There’s always room for improvement, lessons learned and hopefully we will work out some of the quirks of traveling better and smarter.  But we did do some things right, or at least things that helped us.

House - we cleaned house before we left on each of these trips.  Sure, we were gone long enough that we needed to do some housework and yard work when we got home but at least we came home to clean sheets, the ironing was done, the only laundry we had was what we took on the trip, the refrigerator was empty but clean, and the house was tidy and comfortable when we returned. I didn’t feel I needed to dust and vacuum for at least a few days!

Car – of course we made sure our vehicle was in good working order before we left on the road trips but we also kept up with the maintenance while we were traveling.  We got lucky when we were in MI because we were at Bob’s brother’s house when we realized we needed to have our tires rotated; he told us exactly where to go for reliable service.  Because our car is still under warranty we needed to have authorized service at both the 30,000 and again at 40,000 miles.  We were able to arrange for that service in Bend, OR on our first trip and again in Spokane, WA as we neared the end of our most recent road trip.  Both times worked out quite nicely because we don’t have a dealer in our hometown (Tri-Cities, WA) so having the service done before we got home saved us another trip.

Food – we are the family you see having a picnic at the rest areas.  Neither of us is very “big” on eating restaurant food very often and we don’t care for “fast food.”  So for at least one meal a day we picnic.  Yes, we could make better food choices for these picnics but at least we get out of the car, get some fresh air, usually read the informational boards at the rest area, and sometimes take a little nap.

Iowa rest stops were the nicest!

Information on Colorado

 

Picnic in Alaska

Often, we will take a little walk around the rest area.  It’s a nice break.  We stop at grocery stores and pick up fresh things.  We take advantage of having refrigerators in the motel rooms, or we bag ice to keep the cooler cold.  Usually our picnics are at lunchtime but sometimes we will eat breakfast or dinner out of our picnic stash.  We try to eat only one meal a day in a restaurant, and often try to rotate which meal it is.  Frequently we share a meal, especially if it is dinner.  I think it saves a little bit of money that we are not eating in restaurants all the time, and hopefully we are not overeating because we are in better control of our portions.

 

Reward points – we try to keep our costs down by being aware of and using our motel points and our airline miles if we are flying. Some motels allow you to use lower miles along with some cash to pay for rooms, which works well for us.  If we have to pay full price for a room we try to book at a chain motel where we are members of the rewards program so we can “up” our points balance to use on future stays.

Finances – naturally the bills come due regardless of whether we are home or not.  So one of the great conveniences of technology is the advent of online banking.  It’s so easy to check the bank balance, pay the bills, check the credit card statements, and monitor the investment accounts.  There are ATMs everywhere, and we use them to get cash or get cash as change at the grocery stores.  We don’t feel as if we need to be vulnerable carrying large sums of money with us because we can stay on top of what we are spending and it’s easy to get cash when we need it.  Now, all that being said we are going to take a trip this winter to Costa Rica and we know we are going to need cash to pay for transport, some of our lodging, and meals at neighborhood restaurants.  So we need to give all of that some thought!

Technology – in addition to online banking we appreciate many of the perks of technology.  We frequently text our family so they know where we are and where we are going.  We post pictures on Facebook so we can share the trip as we go along.  We travel with our iPhones, iPads, and laptop to keep connected.  We can set our phones as “personal hotspots” if we do not have Wi-Fi available.  We often look for motels as we are driving and near the end of our day.  Every few days we call home to check for messages on our landline.  The world is much smaller thanks to technology but it allows us to explore and keep involved with our life.

Budgeting – Bob’s a retired engineer and I’m a burned out accountant so we both like spreadsheets and numbers!  Twisted, I know.  But we did sort of plan out our trips and try to budget for them.  We set aside the money and hopefully it will all work out in the big picture of things.  Right now I’d say we didn’t budget enough but I also know that during this calendar year we have prepaid a good portion of our early 2016 trip to Costa Rica.  One thing we didn’t adequately project was the money we spent on the “little things” like entrance fees, a few souvenirs, gifts for our hosts, and my daily coffee fix.  I’m not saying those things are breaking the bank but they do add up.  We are telling each other that this year is a learning curve . . . with each trip we’ll get smarter and hopefully the money trail will reflect that.

To recap, after three large trips, we have traveled for 12 ½ weeks, 12,557 driving miles, 2109 air miles, 37 hours by ferry, spent six nights camping, 1 week in a timeshare, 4 nights in the floating box, 52 nights in a motel, and 20 nights with family and friends.  Combining all three trips we visited 23 states (WA, OR, CA, NV, ID, UT, CO, KS, MO, IL, KY, TN, OH, IN, MI, WI, MN, IA, NE, WY, SD, MT & AK) and the Yukon & BC, Canada.  All of it has been interesting, challenging, fun, and rewarding.  Yes, we wish we knew then what we know now but life is a big journey, and especially when traveling.  Our insight into retirement . . . can’t wait for the next adventure!  Thanks for coming along.

Sunset over Eastern WA