The Road East: Day 1

Retirement.  You know how people say, “If you had told  me 5 years ago that I’d be doing x, y, z, I would have told you were crazy?”  Yeah.  It’s like that.  I took stock of what Abi and I have done in the past 5 years and I kinda don’t even believe it.  But here we are on the road to retirement.

Where are we?  Right this very moment I’m sitting in a hotel business center – in Winnemucca, NV – because the supposed WiFi in our room is lousy at best.  Rather than throw my laptop out the window; my wise husband suggested I carry it down to the business center and lo and behold, perfection.  Please explain to me why it can’t be perfection in my comfortable bed in said hotel room?  But I digress.

The hills near our hotel in Winnemucca, NV

Five years ago if you had said to me, “Patti, in 5 years from now you will have sold 2 homes, retired from your career in California, moved to Oregon, bought, remodeled and operated a Bed & Breakfast and then sold said B&B, sooner than you ever thought possible, and THEN you’ll retire and move to the east coast,” I would have said, “Yeah, right.”

But here we are and I have absolutely no doubt that this is exactly where we are supposed to be.

If you’ve ever driven across the Nevada desert, you know of what I speak when I say it is mind-numbing at best.  We have done it way too many times and each time I swear it will be the last.  But here we are again.

Prison in the middle of nowhere Nevada. I can’t imagine the inmates would even think of escaping. Where would they go? But I always love the signs near prisons, “No hitch hiking allowed.”  Ha!

No Looking Back

After about 4 hours of sleep tormented tossing and turning, we drove away from Abigail’s for the last time with no looking back and no regrets.  It’s all good.  We made the right decision.  It will, however, take a little getting used to this new life.  I walked past the hotel gym earlier and I thought, “I should work out” (like I ever work out) but then I thought, “Nah, I’m on vacation.”  And then I thought, “No. I’m not, this is for real.”  This is the new life.  This will take some getting used to.

We left Ashland just before 7:00 a.m. this morning while it was still dark and we watched the sun rise as we crossed the California/Oregon border.  It was a moment.  The fall colors as we drove through the mountains at the base of Mt. Shasta were stunning, but I was in such a state of mind I didn’t think to stop for photos.  ::sigh::  After an oh-so-fun reunion lunch with dear sweet friends, in Reno, we headed east, right out into the mind-numbing Nevada desert – again.

We thought long and hard about taking on yet another cross-country drive, but I’m confident in our decision to make this journey because we really need the days on the road to just be together and decompress.  After all, we’ve had house guests for nearly 4 years!  It’s going to be amazing.

Day 1:  460 miles.  48 gallons of gas.  Big Betty is averaging about 10 mpg.

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