piscolife.com

In December 2002, I retired (hopefully permanently). At that point I wanted to do some extensive traveling. Maria was settled into Santa Barbara and her job working in an elementary school, and did not wish to leave that position nor all her friends and family. We established that I would travel until she felt like she wanted to join me. I went by myself to England for a few weeks in March. When I returned, Maria reaffirmed that she didn't want to quit her job. and I said I was then off to Costa Rica. That was it. She relented, we packed up our belongings in the house, rented it for over a year, and began buying tickets.

After solid traveling for over a year, we took back our house in the fall of 2004, thinking that our traveling was done for a while. It wasn't. We never stopped. After having lived out of suitcases for a year and a half, jumping on and off boats, trains, and airplanes, I realized that we were fortunate to have traveled when we were "younger", for in 10 years, even if we are still physically able to do this traveling, we may not be mentally able to do it. I could see myself maybe prefering to watch an uninterrupted season of 49er football. Therefore, we have continued to travel. Along the way, we rented our house for another year. We have spent a good deal of time in Maria's native Chile, and we built a house there. We have spent much time on Maui where we have a little condo. We love Thailand in November. We have seen so many places and shared so much time with friends. We have done so much over these years that it is fortunate to be able to put on a slideshow of our exploits to remind us of where and with whom we have trod.

When we began traveling, I began writing these travel updates to help share our experiences with family and friends. Everyone enjoyed them so much, sharing our trips with us. The email distribution list soon grew to well over 100, with those people forwarding the updates to probably 100 more. I have appreciated all the positive feedback I have gotten from these, and I hope I am fortunate enough to be able to generate them well into the future.

We have yet to make it to Costa Rica.

Randy

Sept 2010