Not Bored Yet: Thoughts on the 1 year anniversary of our retirement

One of the top three responses we got when telling people that we planned to retire (early) was “aren’t you worried that you might get bored?” And the answer was always “Ummm, nooooo,” but now we tend to discuss this question as we hit each milestone. Nope, not bored yet.

I do think it takes a little work not to get into a rut when you completely change your routine, and in our case, completely remove any semblance to our former routines. In case you missed it, see the earlier post on our retirement “plan” for context.

One thing that keeps us busy (and is a lot of fun), is planning where we will go next. And, in each location we stay longer than one night, we need to spend time learning the “place” (usually an airbnb or a VRBO) and the new town or city. We make lists of the things we want to see and/or do, which we use to decide what our plan will be for each day. The best part (to me at least) is that “doing nothing” still feels awesome because we have plenty of days that we are doing “something.” It’s also a joy to do some of the popular sightseeing trips on a Tuesday (for example) to avoid the crowds. Our recent trip to the Biltmore estate in Asheville would have been torture if crowded (the hallways were tight, it was warm and there were a lot of stairs).

Biltmore Mansion - check out the NC blog post

And, of course, there are the mundane parts of any routine that have now been complicated by our travel (grocery shopping, haircuts, doctor appointments, prescriptions), but we also have a lot more time to figure it all out.

We’re also getting to reconnect or spend time with a lot of friends who live outside of Southern California (Craig even went to a high school “reunion” of his besties that might not have worked out pre-retirement).

Hot & Sour Soup FROM SCRATCH.

And, we are working hard on getting healthier. Craig really likes to cook (thank god, because I am NOT blessed with those skills), so he is making lots of yummy healthy stuff for us. He’s even talking about taking some sushi making classes! We are easily increasing our average daily steps since our jobs are now sightseeing and hiking/exploring. We walked 5 miles just on the day we went to the Biltmore estate.

I’m also really enjoying writing my blog (thank you, dear readers!). I get to exercise a skill I’ve always wanted to further explore and it gives me the proper motivation to organize all those photos that would otherwise languish in the photo library.

Some of the nuts and bolts that some of you have asked about:

• How are we doing without all our stuff? Well, apparently, all I needed to feel “at home” was a comfy robe and slippers! We also carry around a few kitchen essentials and a pair of really good pillows. Other than that, it’s just what fits in the back of the truck and we add or subtract things as we learn their importance. (We can still see over the top of the stuff!)

• One of the weird ones for me - where do I get my hair cut? I have “difficult” hair - #IYKYK. I tested a theory and picked a lady in Charleston who seemed to have similar hair to mine. It worked (well, I’m 1 for 1). And, magically, the salon gave me a glass of wine to enjoy during the haircut. What’s up with that?

• How do we decide where to go next? Sometimes it’s obvious (we wanted to go to Jazzfest in NOLA), sometimes it’s about the journey between two defined objectives (New Orleans to Miami Beach to visit friends). Sometimes, it’s totally random - my favorite story - Craig was chatting with his barber in St. Augustine, Florida about our retirement and mentioned that we were tired of the humidity and heat. The barber recommended Waynesville outside of Asheville, NC - lots of good hiking in the Smoky Mountains, a cute town and better weather because of the elevation. Score!

• What happens if you decide you don’t like being homeless or get tired of it? Well, then, we’ll change the plan! And, with all our traveling, we might even identify where we’d like to settle down. We don’t expect this to happen any time soon, but there’s no reason we can’t change the plan whenever we decide to (we’ve been telling people we expect to enjoy doing this for 3 to 10 years, but that’s completely random).

If you have any other burning questions, let me know!

Next stop……our nation’s capitol!