Starting on the road of retirement

Steve's original plan for retirement was to sail his 44 foot sailboat around the Caribbean and other warm exotic places. But when I kept puking every time we hit rough water, regardless of Scopalamine patches or Zofran, he decided on Plan B. Plan B being: driving all over North America in an RV. Since I have never seen myself as a camper-- I do not like being wet or dirty or cold--he took me to an RV show and I became convinced I could live in a tiny house.  

For some time we have been planning for what happens after I turn 66 and retire. Midwives For Haiti gave me a lovely retirement party in January. There were so many surprises and special touches and tears shed. I will always have Midwives For Haiti in my thoughts daily. I will always care about the friends I made in Haiti. I will always feel passion about midwifery and saving the lives of mothers and babies all over the world. I am still getting used to not being responsible for the day to day workings of Midwives For Haiti but grateful to be retired and leaving the main leadership to others.

Now I need a break. Now I need to spend this time with Steve and treasure it. Life is short and we are in the stage of life when anything can happen to our health. We sold the house, put way too much stuff in storage, and downsized to bare necessities for this year on the road. Becoming more minimalist is a good discipline at this stage of life.

I will have lots of time to think while Steve drives so you may get TMI in these blogs- ha! 

Regarding Midwives For Haiti-- I still have to check and forward some emails to the new ED of MFH. Also field some phone calls- one with a donor, one with a doctor who is trying to help us negotiate with a difficult priest in Haiti. Also went to a meeting with a CEO of Bon Secours because we have been waiting to meet with him for  over a year and did not want to wait until Jessica was back from Haiti. 

Last week we flew to Albany, NY, to the Newmar dealer who sold us the RV this past summer. We got some very brief and basic instructions and then drove it back to Richmond without incidence except that we found some small things that are not right yet--Like the speaker on my side does not work and the USB charger sites do not work even when Steve replaced the fuse. 

The week before, Steve took our car- it has to be a manual transmission so we got an Elantra- to Virginia Beach to a place where you can do your own car work in a place they will raise and lower your car for you and you rent the place by the hour. Steve thought he could install the tow bar in the front by himself and he did that ok. But when he went to drill a hole in the floor near the brake to attach a wire that will communicate with the RV braking system, he was off an inch and drilled a hole in the power brake booster. He was so happy when the owner of the shop said he could fix that- and he did. It would have cost Steve a lot of money elsewhere to get that repaired so he tipped the guy really well when we left and paid our bill. 

(There have been a lot of jokes since-- that it is like the surgeon who cuts into the bladder by mistake and has to call the urologist for help with repair. Evidently this happens to most OB's during C-sections at least once in their career. Dr. Alice Hirata is one of the OB's on the MFH BOD and at dinner with us this week she was remembering that soon after Steve hired her as a new obstetrician, she made that mistake. After all was fixed, she was afraid of what Steve would say when she told him. She said he just smiled and said, "I'm glad it wasn't me.")

For a week the RV was parked indoors in a large storage warehouse where there are lots of boats and RV's and sport cars stored for a fee. We put a few things in it - enough to realize it has a lot of storage space and we spent a fortune on storage containers at Home Depot. Then yesterday we moved it to an RV park just north of Richmond. Every RV park has its own personality so you will hear a lot about these. This one has a free waffle breakfast every morning and a free dinner every Thursday night. It has a pool- closed now, and large outdoor gym for kids, an outdoor ping-pong area, tennis courts, bean bag game, horse shoes, etc. Everyone is very friendly and helpful.

We are going to learn a lot about this country on this trip. One thing we have already learned is that there are a lot of people our age  and younger who have little retirement savings and they live in RV's full-time. They work at parks and restaurants in exchange for free parking and food. 

Yesterday we babysat Garvey and Polette while Peter and Amparito went to lunch to celebrate their anniversary-- 2008 so it has been 10 years.  Garvey, who missed school for 3 days due to a fever and vomiting, said something very sweet. He said, "Grandma, will you have a house again sometime?" I said, "Yes, I would like to have a house again."  He said, "Grandma, promise me you will stop moving around, ok?"

That is going to be the hardest thing for me this coming year- going long periods of time without seeing grandchildren. But we are determined that this is the time to do this trip. We are getting older and have so many friends with health issues that cannot do this. I also hope this forces me to be more active, doing more biking and hiking where ever we go. 

 So this week we move out of the apartment-- this place is an obstacle course of boxes and our backs are aching. The mover comes tomorrow to put the furniture and many other things in storage with the rest of my stuff that got stored this summer. Somehow I have packed all the plates and silverware either in the RV or in boxes and Steve is eating pimento cheese and pita chips with a sugar spoon for supper.  

We will live in the RV to get acquainted with the systems for one week. We are still pulling out the book for learning how things work. Yesterday it was the auto-leveling system.Then, if all goes as planned, we will take off for Charleston, SC to see Steve's daughter and her family. Later we will see two friends in Northport, FL and go to a BB game between the Red Sox and Tampa Bay, go to Sarasota and see Shannon and Keith one day. After that we will meet Greta and Mike and children in Orlando for a day or two. Really looking forward to Florida. 

More next week....