Back on the Road — This Time Without the RV

 

After completing some of our renovations on the Park Model, we knew one thing for sure; we didn't want to spend the summer in Arizona. We made plans to head east for an extended stay with our daughter and her family in North Carolina.

We packed up, locked the Park Model, and hit the road. However, this time, there was one big difference—we left the RV behind with its new owner.

Traveling in a car is definitely different from traveling in the RV. After all these years of being on the road, we got used to limiting ourselves to about 150 miles a day. That's a pretty easy pace when you're traveling in a motorhome. In a car, though, 600 miles in a day doesn't seem nearly as crazy. I have to admit, it's a little strange to look at the mileage and realize just how far we can go in a single day.

Our first stop was Texas, where we spent some time with our son and his family. It's always nice to be able to slow down for quality time with family. Our grandson, Cameron who just graduated from High School was happy to show us his new car and took us out for a spin in it! We also managed to make a few stops at some of our favorite places, including Luckenbach and the old River Road in Central Texas. Some places just never get old.

While in Texas, we headed over to College Station to take care of our rental house. We decided it was probably time to exit the rental business, so we spent some time fixing the place up and getting it ready to put on the market.

Of course, nothing is ever quite as simple as it sounds. We're going to try to sell it, but if it doesn't move fairly quickly, we may decide to rent it again. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Our next significant stop was in Mississippi, where we spent the night. There was an important reason for stopping there—we needed to share a delicious, massive shrimp po'boy before moving on down the road.

From Mississippi, we continued east until we finally made it to North Carolina and that's where we settled in for quite a while.

One of the best parts of retirement is the ability to spend an extended amount of time with family, and this trip gave us the opportunity to really soak up some time with our grandchildren, Allie and Emmy. It was fabulous to experience day to day life with them making priceless memories while also enjoying time with our daughter and her husband.

Of course, when the kids were at school and their parents were at work, we had to find something to keep ourselves occupied. Naturally, we played quite a bit of disc golf and visited a few places for craft beer.

Those who know us probably aren't surprised by that. Disc golf and finding good craft beer are two of our favorite ways to spend our free time. 

I won't bore you with all the details of everything we did during our extended stay in North Carolina. Let's just say we had a blast. There was plenty of family time, plenty of fun, great food and plenty of memories made. But, as it always seems to do, the time eventually came for us to move on.

Now it's time to slowly start making our way back toward Arizona. We're planning to take our time, make a few house sitting stops along the way, and, of course, find a few adventures along the way.

After all, that's what this life on the road of retirement is really all about.