Category: TRAVEL (Page 2 of 44)

I’m taking a blogcation from posting over the next week or so, as we travel to Oakland, California. I’m leaving behind my computer but will make some notes on my phone to sum up the trip to see my wife’s daughter and husband. Most likely there will be a poem. We leave the house in the capable hands of Tally’s dogsitter, and catch a Delta flight out of 
Fort Myers on Wednesday afternoon. I’ll have plenty of time on Wednesday morning to get my 2.1 miles in before we venture to the airport. A neighborhood friend is kindly picking us up at the house, dropping us at the airport and returning us on the 12th. We tried to talk her out of it since it’s such a late arrival back in Ft. Myers, but she insisted. Apparently, she has a friend in Ft. Myers that she wants to visit, but we don’t get in until 11:30p, and that’s barring any delays that will be likely on the three flights home. 

It will be a long day on the 12th, leaving at 6a from Oakland after a very early morning run in the dark. This is always one of the challenges of running every day and maintaining the streak. It’s really 9a our time, but we will be well adapted to the Pacific Time Zone after a week of being there. I have plans to meet college friends on the Saturday after we arrive to watch the I.U. vs. Auburn basketball game from Atlanta. The city will be one of our stops on the way there and back. Hopefully, we’ll come back winners!

While I’m enjoying the I.U. game, my wife has plans to go to Chinatown and on other adventures with her daughter. As a cardio-thoracic PA at Stanford, I’m sure they’ll continue to discuss my upcoming surgery, while shopping for “Year of the Dragon” merchandise to use at our annual Chinese New Year Party that she hosts. They’ll also decide on restaurant choices, considering that our first pick recently burned down. 

Today has taken on a relatively hectic retirement schedule. I Chauferred my wife to school early after finishing my morning run. Tally and I then went to the dog park, and I went on to get my holiday haircut and have my sore back worked on by the chiropractor. It still hasn’t healed since I clipped my toenails last week. Embarrassing enough, it was an old age related, reoccurring injury from bending over too long and pinching a nerve. At least, my shoulder has healed, so this gave the osteopath something new to work on. It won’t help being on a plane later this week, so when I get back home more adjustments will be necessary. This is why I’m on a maintenance plan with weekly visits because it’s always something. 

For lunch, I’ll reheat some leftovers from our Big Bamboo “Date Night” on Saturday. Pad Thai should work for “Meatless Monday.” Tally gets another fortune cookie, while I enjoy (but can’t pronounce or spell) more of the Greek dessert delicacies that our neighbor down the street baked.  I’ll then dutifully pick my wife up from school at three, where hopefully she won’t again be the victim of a vomiting child or have to deal with disruptive, unruly students. I certainly couldn’t do what she does, even though it is only part-time substitution. We both can’t imagine how full-time teachers maintain their sanity. She’ll unwind at her Aqua-Fit Christmas party this evening, as I’ll begin packing for Oakland. 

It’s a retirement Friday, so a better day of the week is simply not possible. Yesterday, we took Tourist Thursday to Gasparilla Island and Boca Grande. It’s rumored to be the location of a yet to be recovered pirate’s treasure, adding to its lore. It reminded us of Key West but less than an hour away. The island was once served by a railroad, but a $6 toll bridge is now the only access. Another $2 for parking and you’re good for a day on the pristine beaches, so also suitable for a beach bum’s retirement budget. We packed a picnic but there are numerous lunch spots, bars, and a huge hotel. It will be a future “Date Night” destination, if not a getaway weekend.

“Toes in the water, ass in the sand,” as Jimmy Buffett would describe our afternoon. It rained on the way home, prior to our dinner at Chili’s and a visit with my manager son. It seemed appropriate to order a cheeseburger after a sunny afternoon in “paradise.” We are so close to many great beaches but don’t probably get there often enough. Sand is like paint for me – can’t get near it without getting it all over me. It’s a magnetic attraction and annoying to remove while spreading to the car, garage, and bathroom. I left the beach a bit sunburned and gritty.

Tonight is “Date Night,” and our choice is the Snowbird Grille. One of the rules is it has to be a place that we’ve never been to before. It will be wise to dine there while the Snowbirds are away before the area swells again in size, traffic becomes a nightmare, and the restaurants get packed. We have about a month before they begin to return from their northern lake cottages. Our Islandwalk neighborhood remains abandoned and quiet like the relatively uninhabited area beaches such as Gasparilla Island State Park. 

I’ve decided not to take my computer with me to Portland, so if I write anything over the next week it will be on my phone and later added to this blog. The metrics officially show that no one is really reading this, so it remains just a personal therapeutic release. I still enjoy writing but there is simply no urgency. There is a wedding poem that I have yet to post, and I’ve promised a retirement poem to another friend. This will give me something to do on the long flight tomorrow. I’m fighting a lack of motivation as a result of the suffocating heat. A light rain this morning helped get me through another day of running. A change of pace will be welcome. 

The evening golf cart rides have been a welcome change to the daily routine. I’m grateful just to be healthy after hearing that a neighborhood friend just took a fall and is wearing a back brace. This could happen to anyone at any time. She simply tripped over a dog toy and landed wrong. My son recently tested positive for Covid, not much of a way to celebrate a birthday. He still plans to go to Universal Studios this weekend, taking advantage of our Marriott Vacation Club accommodations in Orlando. By the way, I just learned that Marriott has added the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas to their Luxury Collection. It’s where we were married. Perhaps we can return there as part of our upcoming 25th anniversary celebration. 

Our American flight from Fort Myers to Portland leaves tomorrow evening at 5p, putting us in our Enterprise rental car at about 11p (2a here). We’ll stay at my son-in-law’s new home, return to some of our favorite dining spots, and head to Tillamook, Netarts, and Oceanside for two days of wedding festivities. I hope to work in a visit to a good friend’s home under construction, but my wife wants to spend as much time as possible with her daughter, so logistics will be a challenge. We’ll be gone for eight days, with Tally staying at a neighbor’s house rather than the usual Schnauzerville accommodations. It will be a welcome change of pace for all of us. 

When I retired seven years ago, I thought I had things pretty well set up financially. After all, I had a sturdy four-legged stool of Social Security, a generous pension, 401k savings, and a working wife. She expected to work for two more years, adding to our retirement savings. However, the company she worked for had other plans and soon she too was collecting Social Security, while the stool was getting a bit wobbly. 

Covid struck while we were living in a pricy downtown Portland apartment and travel plans were put on hold. We started building a Florida retirement home and money began to rapidly flow only one way -out. We invested more than expected in our home, although wisely deciding on a resort community, pool and upgrades that will ultimately pay off. Needless to say, our budget has grown tight with my wife’s champaign taste and our mutual interest in travel. We’ve driven across country twice – Oregon to Florida; ventured to Glacier National Park; toured the Midwest and stayed at the iconic Grand Hotel; boarded Viking luxury ocean & river cruises to Normandie, Santorini, Alaska, Hawaii, and Egypt; took side trips to Miami, Savannah, St. Augustine, Tampa, the Keys, Frankfurt, Pittsburgh, Athens, Venice, Amsterdam, Paris, Petra, Honolulu, Bangkok, London, Rome, and Vancouver; plus, utilized the Marriott Vacation Clubs in Maui, the Big Island, Kauai, Amelia Island, Miami Beach, Phuket, Las Vegas, Panama City, Hyde Park, Marco Island, Orlando, and San Francisco.

We’ve already paid most of the cruise and lodging expenses to travel next spring from South America, through Africa, and into Spain, plus five nights in Mallorca. Airfare is due soon, another worthwhile drain on our 401k savings but wisely settling for economy seating rather than our normal business class accommodations. These pleasurable journeys have all been anticipated retirement expenses, although in too many cases, more costly than expected in these inflationary times. Even a McDonald’s Diet Coke is now $2.17, up dramatically from the traditional $1 paid since I can remember.

Increasing food costs, insurance, gas, dental, medical, and utility bills are quickly eating into my retirement budget, while contingency funds are running out. This coupled with recent unexpected setbacks like a lost diamond from my wife’s wedding ring, a bad thermostat, and other surprise home repairs have me wondering about our retirement future. Will we be back at work after the traveling is done?

I watched De Niro and Al Pacino go at it yesterday in Heat, following up on yesterday’s post. I’ll be confined to my office today while our dining room built-ins are being installed, so I may get a chance to watch another movie. I’m debating whether or not the rain will hold off this afternoon and give me a chance to invite the grandkids to swim. I haven’t seen much of them this summer with my son working most every day and their mother preparing for optometry school in Miami. Everybody in the family seems to be busy but me. Once my morning run is over, I’m pretty much a slug. 

I would say that I’m a couch potato, but I spend most of my time on a desk chair or a stool. Our schnauzer Tally hogs the comfortable chair in my office. Evenings – I am usually on the couch next to my wife watching more TV. It would be a sad existence if it weren’t for all the traveling we do. That is getting more and more exhausting. When that all ends in a few years from now, I just might feel like I’m imprisoned if it weren’t for all the amenities in our resort community. We can utilize our golf cart to go from pool-to-pool to fitness classes, courts, dog park, our garden plot, gyms, vendors, and game rooms. There are evening concerts and get-togethers to also keep us entertained. The Atlanta Braves Spring Training facility is just a mile away, along with downtown Wellen Park. 

This will eventually become a huge residential area once 9,000 more doors are constructed. Shopping centers, big box stores, apartments, a major hospital, schools, care facilities, golf courses, and other recreational opportunities will soon follow, all within a 3-mile radius. We already made the decision to own just one car and the golf cart. Most of our future travel will be to visit family and friends, mostly in the states, with a week here and there at a Marriott Vacation Club. I still have to get to Maine, but the travel bucket is quickly emptying. We have one last major Cross-Atlantic cruise booked next spring with key stops in Buenos Aeres, Rio, Casablanca, Seville, Barcelona, and Mallorca. Then, it’s all about the TV.

I will not make the mistake of booking another flight on Frontier Airlines. It looked good on Expedia from a price comparison standpoint, even taking into account extra charges for seat assignments and luggage. I was trying to inexpensively get to a friend’s wedding in Oregon, and even though there was a substantial layover in Denver from Ft. Myers, Florida, it was worth a try. Then, I began to get notifications of flight changes that ultimately had us spending 8-hours in the Mile High City terminal. It was the beginning of another retirement hassle. 

My wife started the process of trying to get hold of an actual Frontier representative to explore other options, but all she could find was an automated site that seemed impossible to navigate. After several long waits and hangups we discovered there were no other flight options, and in fact the flight we originally booked was no longer available. Our only choice was to cancel and rebook with another airline. All of this information was relayed via a chat line without ever taking to a live person. I began to wonder if their planes were fully automated, as well? Was this a new modern, frontier in computerized transportation with robotic pilots and service personnel? Without the comfort of human interaction (someone to yell at), I decided it would be my last Frontier. 

Cancelling, of course, was equally frustrating, once again without human guidance. It was a lot of paperwork and searching through booking documents to answer the numerous questions on the form. I even had to go to the app and apply for a mileage account to be able to add a frequent flyer number. This seemed odd since we had yet to fly with this airline, just more busy work to complete the request for cancellation. Were they hoping to discourage me from asking for a refund? I figured that once I submitted the request, there would be more questions, and perhaps interaction with a humanoid. 

I was not holding my breath for a reply since they indicated it might take several days to process my request. I was very suspicious that this may never happen, and I wouldn’t have anyone to talk with about it. I could foresee having to go back through the entire automated process over and over again to get resolution. Instead, about an hour later I was shocked to get a note authorizing a full refund but had no one to thank for the quick response. It may take weeks to see the credit on my account, but I felt relief knowing that I was no longer in a black hole. In the meantime, we had to book another flight, including a Jet Blue red eye back home. Frontier Airlines is no longer a travel option – the Final Frontier. 

After nearly 25 years together, my wife and I rarely are apart for the night, let alone four nights. Even when she traveled for business, I would usually accompany here. However, in retirement, the costs of care for our schnauzer Tally, lodging, and airfare have resulted in a few separate trips, usually to visit family. 

I just dropped her off at the Punta Gorda Airport for a 5-day visit to Indianapolis. She’ll stay with her sister, get together with old friends, and attend a bridal shower for her niece. I will take care of Tally at home and fend for myself, although she has pre-prepared meals that will require little but the microwave. I have baseball and softball to watch and will obviously continue my morning runs, but have little else planned. 

With the early start this morning, I cut back on my mileage for the first time since our recent return from Egyptian travel. I was certainly not ready to get back on another plane, and won’t for another month when we travel to Portland. I’m already dreading an 8-hour layover in Denver and the 2a arrival. With time changes, partying, and strange beds, we’ll once again be exhausted. However, we are looking forward to the wedding, reconnecting with friends, seeing my stepdaughter’s new house, and the cooler Pacific temperatures. 

After another wedding in Indiana this August, my wife may need to fly to Oakland for a holiday visit with her other daughter. I may elect to stay home with Tally, creating another separation for a few days. These old bones are losing interest in the rigors of travel and I’ll need to rest up for our spring cruise across the Atlantic, maybe the last straw in major adventures. We’ll welcome visitors at home, especially if it means no travel and no being apart.