Beth and I have begun organizing our little home in Youngsville, NY so that the summer boarders can take over our place and we can begin our yearly travel adventure.
This year, we are spending July at an RV park 45 minutes east of here. Then it’s on to LBI for the first two weeks of August.
After that, we are heading west, taking ten days to reach Colorado. From there we will tour state parks in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico for forty days and nights before taking another ten days to return back home. We are calling it our Southwest Tour.
As you can imagine, there are a lot of big and small details to accomplish before we can leave home and live in our RV for three and a half months. To tell the truth, though, it has gotten easier over the years and I am feeling more excited than anxious. There’s just something wonderful about RV travel that thrills me.
If I were to sum it up in one word it would be PRESENCE. Getting behind the wheel of our truck and heading down the driveway, I become alive in a way that’s different from being a homesteader.
It has taken me many years to reach this point. I used to live my life in more binary terms of good/bad. Travel was more bad than good to my younger self. So were many other things that brought up more fear than love.
After a lot of work, though, I encounter the ups and downs of life with a different perspective. I tend to judge less and just be more. In that sense, I think I’ve moved into a better space where I can roll with punches, enjoying happiness and love more and fretting less about the inevitable challenges. Thank God!
And there are some challenges. Our bodies aren’t as strong and trouble-free in our sixties. Parts are showing some wear!
Still, I remain hopeful AND I am busting my butt to adapt to the challenges of growing older. What else can we do?
