My Traveling Days Aren't Over Yet

After forty-eight years of working, my goal in retirement was to travel more. Now that I have been retired for seven years, my wife and I have enjoyed working toward that goal with several trips, including two west coast trips, an Alaskan cruise, several trips to Savannah and a couple trips to Destin, Floria.

Sadly, now at this point in time, I find myself starting to become more of a home body. Not sure why and not sure if that feeling will last, but for now I am content just being home. I do not think my wife is happy with this idea, but I really think after taking a little break from traveling, I will be ready to go again.

When I was young, my parents really did not do very many big trips. They took me to a few places that were not too far away, like Lake Burr Oak in Glouster, Ohio, a church camp in the Logan, Ohio area (where I would only spend a day each year), a train trip to Indianapolis once each summer for three years, and a couple of train trips to New York City. Now, that was over a twenty-year time span, so it was really not a lot of traveling.

When I was a teenager, I went to the annual youth conference with our church two or three times at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, but any other outing was mostly around town and close to home.

After I was married, I remember taking the kids to a religious theme park in South Carolina for a few days. We also went to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania once, and a few trips closer to home such as the Columbus Zoo, Wyandot Lake, Kings Island and Cedar Point. This time period covered another fifteen years, so again, not a lot of traveling.

It really was not until I was in my forties that we started branching out and doing a little more traveling further from home. For a while, it was with our kids and beach trips to North and South Carolina and Florida. After they began having families of their own, my wife and I continued to travel and explore different areas.

In the past ten to fifteen years, we have started traveling a lot more—venturing further from home and spending longer periods away. Our biggest trips (so far) have been the two west coast trips I mentioned earlier, driving both times. Currently, we have traveled to every state in the United States except North Dakota and Hawaii. Since I am not a big airplane person, I told my wife we could go to Hawaii as soon as they get the bridge built from California to Hawaii. I do not think she thought that was too funny.

Overall, it is wonderful to love our house, enjoy our neighborhood, and feel comfortable being home together Compared to many people, we have not done much traveling over seventy some years, but we are certainly blessed to have been to so many places and to have seen so many sights we never dreamed we would see. I will say that my wife was happy the other day when she found me exploring a condo in Savannah, Georgia to rent next year. I guess my traveling days are not over after all.