Home Between Trips (As Opposed to Vice Versa)

Yes, this is what we were fortunate enough to be gazing at each time we sat down to eat over these last four days of our visit to Crystal Cove Moro campground in Newport Beach, California. The views are so stellar we find it difficult to do much more than sit in our camp chairs and stare around us in wonder that all this is ours for the modest cost of $50 per night, all inclusive.

Of course, being that this is a campground, all inclusive doesn't necessarily mean what it might elsewhere. Here all inclusive refers to the site reservation, the easy access to miles and miles of hiking trails in adjacent El Moro Canyon, the easy access to a pedestrian-only walking tunnel that goes safely under Pacific Coast Highway and over to El Moro State Beach, and pretty perfunctory, but clean, restrooms and showers. Actually, the showers aren't free come to think - they cost .75 cents for three minutes of hot water. My husband and I have perfected getting very, very clean on one shared .75 cent shower. We get all set up, including having the bottles of shampoo and conditioner opened and ready to go, set our watch timers to "00.00," pop in the quarters, hit "start" on our timers and jump in. It's fun, actually, and we always end up laughing like idiots at our efforts to get soaped up and shampooed in the allotted time. 

We hiked some 23 miles over the three nights/four days we were there, read tons, ate ridiculously well (that's Lemon & Basil Zest Pasta in the above photo, plus a crunchy salad, garlic bread and some very nice red wine) and enjoyed some terrific wildlife sightings, including two rabbits that visited our site several times daily, generally during meals to gaze at us beseechingly, a roadrunner spotted during one of our hikes, and a whale sighting this morning as we were sitting outside drinking coffee.

As usual, after some time away, my head feels clearer, my spirit feels lighter and the world makes a little more sense than it did before.

We're here at home for the long holiday weekend, then we leave again for a five night stay at Campland By The Bay in San Diego. (Winter rates go into effect the day after Labor Day, bringing this pricey campground's rates down to a more reasonable level.) We'll return just in time to make the first day of fall classes at our local university's Lifelong Learning Program for retirees.

Life in early retirement is good. Darn good!

The Gift Of Exercise

After two days of non-activity (yesterday's planned 30 mile bike ride was derailed by a flat rear tire about four miles in . . . and yes, my husband and I recognize it is beyond ridiculous that we have not yet taught ourselves how to change out the rear tire on our bikes.), I'm just back from a 6 mile run and I feel absolutely fantastic. Why I need to constantly remind myself of how much better I feel when I'm physically active on a daily basis is beyond me, but once again the lesson has been learned.

The older I get, the more my energy level and mental stability seem to be intrinsically linked to how much physical exercise I get. The ongoing irony of physical activity is that the harder and longer you push, the more physical energy and mental calmness you receive back in return. 

With that in mind, my husband and I are leaving this afternoon for four days of physical activity and beach time in our trailer. We'll be staying at Crystal Cove Moro in Newport Coast, which offers easy access to miles and miles of hiking and biking trails. The plan is to push hard and go hiking or biking each morning, then slow down and enjoy sightseeing, the beach, and the gorgeous ocean views we have from our bluff site the remainder of each day.

The bottom line, for me at least, is that one hour or more of daily, intense, exercise is the only consistent method I've yet learned to infuse my day with both physical energy and calmness of mind, and to keep any and all depression at bay. The hard part is never, ever in the doing - the doing is incredibly satisfying - the hard part is simply committing to putting on my shoes and walking out the door. 

"Living" Around the World

We've just returned from five days in the Bay Area, and in addition to having a wonderful time, we fell in love, and are determined to spend a month next year in beautiful Mill Valley, located just over the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County.  

I've actually been thinking about ways to "live" somewhere else without physically moving there for quite some time. After giving thought to different ways this might be accomplished, I've landed on doing a long term vacation rental, primarily via the website VRBO.com. This site has been around for quite a while and is recommended frequently on other travel sites. In addition, the site contains extensive information and photos about each property, including traveler reviews, one of my primary methods for researching where we might want to go or stay. 

In the case of Mill Valley, we have two options - stay somewhere small that has knockout views of San Francisco Bay, or for the same price, somewhere a bit larger with views of the mountains. Right now I'm leaning toward a smaller place with views of the water, envisioning the bliss of taking in the views and the sunsets, along with a glass of wine, after a busy day of hiking, biking, wine tasting or sightseeing. We're already used to living in a small space when we're out in our camping trailer, so I suspect even the smallest of places will feel palatial by comparison. 

The other issue would be establishing a month's worth of activities to keep us busy. My initial thought is to plot out a week's worth of activities, and then vary how we do them each week. For Mill Valley, I came up with hiking, biking, wine tasting, going into San Francisco, sightseeing around Marin County, taking classes at a local Buddhist learning center, and spending one day in town exploring and taking care of chores. 

The cost would be anywhere from $2,500 - $4,900, depending on what type of rental we landed on. Additional costs would be pretty negligible - primarily gas and sightseeing costs. Groceries, eating out and basic entertainment are already built into our annual budget, so those would remain unchanged, and hiking and biking are free. The Buddhist Learning Center is almost free at $5.00 per visit, and our gym membership here extends to the facility in Mill Valley, so our indoor workout costs would remain unchanged as well.

So, anyhow, that's the plan. If all goes well, we'll branch out and begin to do the same in other locations we'd like to "live" in as well. On my list already is Santa Fe/Albuquerque, Portland, Denver and Seattle in the USA, as well as New Zealand and Costa Rica. All of these places offer a diverse option of both city and outdoor activities, meaning we'd be able to easily bounce back and forth between the two as we wish. 

Have you done or given thought to doing something similar? Where and how did it go if so?

9/1/12 Update: We've booked a 600 square foot guest house with mountain views, for a 30 day stay in the spring of 2013. The apartment includes laundry facilities, WiFi, Entertainment media galore, and a parking spot. Ultimately, price won out over bay views - final cost came in at $2,470.

The Most Active Retiree I Know - My Dad

I've stumbled across a few blogs lately, that have left me feeling a bit depressed. There seems to be sentiment among a large group of older retirees that their world is shrinking and their best years are behind them. Not only does it make me sad on their behalf, I believe it to be primarily a case of letting your thoughts create your reality. Yes, certainly, if you believe your best years are behind you then they probably are.

I subscribe to the camp of thinking that my best years are still to come. Every year I've lived so far has delivered more than the year preceding, and I see no reason why this should change going forward. Certainly the things I occupy my time with have changed as I've gotten older, but for every activity I've laid aside, another just as satisfying has come along to take it's place. For example, I used to love downhill skiing, now I prefer cross country skiing. I used to enter numerous running events each year, now I prefer to run recreationally, focusing my competitive juices instead on improving my bicycling mileage and speed. I used to enjoy shaking up the dance floor with wild and crazy moves, now I prefer the challenge and romance of ballroom dancing. Which, by the way, includes several heart pumping, not-for-sissy dances like Salsa, Quickstep, Jitterbug and E. Coast Swing.

So I guess I just don't get it. And apparently, neither does my 76 year old father. In the last five years he has bicycled from Canada to Mexico, spent six weeks traveling through Alaska by motorcycle and tent, spent several weeks dirt biking in Death Valley, ridden across the USA countless times in his RV or on his motorcycle, taken an ATV and jeep over the world famous and immensely challenging Rubicon Trail, enrolled in numerous gun and rifle seminars to improve his shooting, taken a racing course at a race track, and most recently, enjoyed a six week tour of northeast Canada by sidecar motorcycle and tent.

My active father at 76, with no signs yet of slowing down.

His primary mode of transportation and lodging in Canada this summer - a sidecar motorcycle and a tent trailer.

All set up and ready to enjoy the evening . . . and the beautiful view! 

One of many hot breakfasts he cooked during the 6-week trip.

During a multi day ATV ride in Colorado earlier this summer

Dad with his classic Russian Ural sidecar motorcycle in Death Valley in 2010.
His companion,Tripper, rides in the sidecar.

I prefer the way my dad is tackling this phase of his life and I plan to do exactly the same. My activities may be different than his, but I expect the enjoyment I get from continuing to live big in my more senior years to be exactly the same. 

How about you? How do you intend to live out your senior years?

Pedal Power!

My husband received a gift card to REI as one of his retirement gifts this last May, and we've been thinking and thinking about what to spend it on, since we're already pretty outfitted for our primary recreation activities of camping, biking and hiking.

After much thought, plus the persuasive powers of a post from Mr. Money Mustache, one of our favorite, if slightly irreverent, bloggers, titled "Try getting your groceries with a bike trailer" we decided to use the gift card to purchase a Burley Nomad cargo carrier in order to drastically change how we go about accomplishing our weekly errands. In addition to using it to carry our groceries, we plan to use it for other small item shopping trips in and around town, to tow our books and musical instruments back and forth to the university where we're enrolled in a lifelong learning program, and to carry chairs and a picnic to our town's weekly concert in the park. We're also thinking it's big enough to hold a couple of duffle bags - meaning some overnight bicycling trips might be in our future.

We hooked the trailer up for the first time this morning, and pedaled to Walmart to pick up a new oscillating fan and an assortment of other small household items we needed. We next headed to Trader Joes to pick up a few groceries, then over to the bank to pull out our weekly cash allotment, before returning home. 

I have to say it was a whole lot of fun doing our shopping this way. It was nice just to be outside moving under our own power vs. being passively confined inside of a car. We also enjoyed seeing how many people took notice of our little trailer and smiled as we pedaled by. Because of the obvious space limitations, it forced us to edit our purchases and limit any impulse buys. And finally, it allowed us to leave our cars at home, saving on gas, as well as wear and tear.

Here are some close up photos of our spiffy new little trailer -

All closed up and ready to go.

The large back end.

The smaller, but still very useful, front end.

We're on the look out for even more ideas on how to maximize our new little trailer, which I'll share here going forward. Ideas from my viewing audience also welcome of course . . .

What I've Learned From Great Books

I am a lifelong book worm. When I was younger I would pedal to the library on my bike every Saturday, checking out as many bikes as my bicycle basket would hold, then return home to read the weekend away. As I got older, the type of books I selected changed, but not the habit. I still love to read.

In 2008, inspired by Oprah's on-air book club, I approached a few of my friends about starting a monthly book club focused on classic fiction. Like myself, they were avid readers who were interested in stretching their literary wings beyond the three "J's" of John Grisham, James Patterson and Janet Evanovich. 

In order to avoid some of the problems my research had uncovered on why book clubs fall apart - primarily unmet expectations - we sat down and drafted a mission statement on who we were and what we expected to accomplish. Our mission statement was simple: To come together monthly and engage in interesting and lively discussion on a variety of books to broaden our minds and enjoy the company of other like-minded adults.

We also developed some basic guidelines on how the club would work. We started first with the easy decisions on what day of the week we would meet, when our meetings would start and end, and how our books would be selected. We then moved on to dicier issues like the need to make sure everyone got a chance to contribute, to respect each other's opinions even if we disagreed, to remain courteous at all times, and most importantly, to turn off all electronics, other than e-readers, during our meetings. 

Over the years that we've been meeting, we've all grown tremendously; both in our appreciation for well written literature, and in our understanding of the world around us. We've learned the reason these gems are considered classics - they deal with timeless questions, problems and conflicts that are as relevant today as they were at the time they were first written. Our discussions are almost always robust and satisfying. Many is the time we've gasped, laughed out loud, or gotten emotional over a brilliantly written passage. 

Below are just a few of the books my book club has enjoyed over the last few years, and how they've left me personally marked:

• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - I first read this in high school, then again in 2009, just as the 2008 economic meltdown, and subsequent mortgage crisis, began creating a swell of foreclosures. To read about the Joads losing their farm and moving into a tenement camp, while simultaneously watching TV coverage of current day tent cities springing up around my home state of California, was certainly a case of life imitating art. I stopped to count my blessings again and again as I read my way through this poignant book.

• The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck - I learned about the value of land  from Wang Lung, who understood that while all of your worldly possessions can be stolen and taken away, no one can ever steal your land. Oh, and I also learned that given the option of trading places with Olan, the hard working wife of Wang Lung, or Lotus, his pampered concubine, most of my girlfriends would choose Lotus!

• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote - Brilliant and chilling depiction of a real life murder in the heartland of America, and made me think hard about where I stand on the death penalty. It also caused me to get up nightly to double check that all of our doors were firmly locked!

• Catch 22 by Joseph Conrad - That all war is insanity. And that some books, even if they have been awarded a Pulitzer Prize, can be really difficult to get through.

• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo - That Jean Valjean was a better human than I can ever hope to be, and my favorite protagonist ever. And that Liam Neesan really was the perfect choice to play him in the movie. And that Victor Hugo really does have an awful lot to say about the sewers of Paris. 

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - That unhappiness exists among the wealthy just as it does among the poor. And that Fitzgerald is a literary master without parallel. The most beautiful paragraph I've ever read comes from this book - "The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor."  Sigh, . . . absolute literary perfection.

So what's on your shelf, and more importantly, how has it left you changed?

There's No Place Like Home

After 24 days on the road, all 24 chock full of interesting activities and wonderful weather, save for one brief thunder shower, it's awfully good to be home.  Which brings to mind the following quote: No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.

And yet, I also can't wait to head out again, which we will in about 10 days. And that brings to mind this quote: Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.


We ended our recent trip $225 under budget, and five pounds lighter - the result of over 130 miles of hiking and biking. Right now we're both feeling unbelievably fit and strong, but we know keeping up the pace now that we're back home will be a challenge, as many other distractions (like the Olympics!) will beckon. We're committed, however, to adding in at least one challenging hill hike to our normal weekly routine of running, biking and going to the gym, so I'm hopeful our backslide won't be too severe.


Otherwise, I'm  enjoying restocking our kitchen and getting back to "real" cooking. Back home just two days, I've already made several wonderful pasta and salad recipes, and one batch of cookies, rejoicing in having access once again to my well stocked pantry. On the road we ate well, but simply. Lots of cereal with fruit, PB&J, and veggies over rice and pasta, along with salad and bread. I used very few spices and very few sauces during our trip, because we simply don't have the room to store them in our trailer. Which, come to think of it, might also have something to do with our five pound weight loss!


Over the course of the next 10 days we'll be entertaining my very active 76 year old father and his special friend (proof you're never too old to find true love), driving to L.A. to submit visa requests at the Chinese Embassy for our fall trip to China, attending the O.C. County Fair, going to see a musical in Laguna Beach, enjoying Norah Jones at the Hollywood Bowl, attending a Sand Castle contest in Long Beach with my photography club, going to two book club events, and returning to our local university as we have time to attend classes.


And then we leave again, this time for several days of hiking with good friends in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. We'll return home again just in time to pack up our RV and head to Newport Beach, then down to San Diego, to round out the summer.


Because I love to go away, and I also love to come back home. It's just the way I roll!

Doing That Which Scares You

Look carefully . . . I'm at the top, on the left!

Yesterday I did something that scared me . . . I clambered up a 300 foot high hill made up entirely of loose obsidian rock. And, oh my goodness, did it turn out to be fun!

Let me back up and start at the beginning - We're currently here in Mammoth Lakes, California, wrapping up our 24 day RV trip. Joining us for this leg of the trip is our daughter and some good friends, all avid hikers as well. We spent the first two days of our stay in Mammoth hiking to Valentine Lake and back (12 miles roundtrip, 1900' in elevation gain, highest point at 9,698') and Rosalie Lake (also 12 miles roundtrip, 1100' in elevation gain, highest point at 9,500'), then took one day off to recover.

With fresh legs, we set out yesterday to do what looked to be a relatively simple hike on paper - a 6.7 mile loop to Crater Meadows in the Ansel Adams Wilderness Area. The hike involved a short climb, followed by a long descent into the meadow. All went well until the midway point, when we expected to be at the meadow for lunch. The only problem was that the meadow showed as being to the right of the trail on my map, and when we got to it, it was on our left. Hmm . . . 

Not 100% certain of where we were on the map, but carefully noting our current location, we turned right at a crossroad, which led to a series of descending switchbacks . . . the exact opposite of what my topography map said should occur. Hmm again . . . 

We returned to the crossroads, where we met two gentlemen that were through-hiking and told us we were currently on the John Muir Trail. Hmm #3 . . . that wasn't part of the Crater Meadow hike route at all!

At that point, the smartest thing to do was to abandon our original plan and return back along the same trail we came down on, which is exactly what we did. When we got back to the trailhead, we compared the map we had against the map the park service had posted, and noticed that the location of Crater Meadow had been moved. To the left. Meaning we hadn't been lost at all, but were simply the victims of bad mapping.

With our hike cut just a bit short, we decided to finish off our day with a trip to Obsidian Dome, a one mile long, 300' foot high dome of loose obsidian created by an ancient volcanic eruption. I'd last visited this interesting sight about 15 years ago, clambering happily up to the top with my two daughters, both teenagers at the time. Today's plan was to climb it with my girlfriend and leave our less enthusiastic husbands at the bottom to take photos. As we got out of the car I looked up and thought to myself, "That thing is a lot higher and steeper than I remember. Hmm . . . "

My girlfriend and I scoped out the dome and decided on a path to the top that looked pretty do-able. As we headed up, I could feel anxiety beginning to build, but I didn't want to give in to it and quit the climb, so I put my head down and focused on the rocks immediately in front of me, not the rocks that lay ahead. After about 15 minutes of climbing (and I'll admit, gasping for air . . . we were doing this at a starting altitude of 8200' after all), I looked up and there was the top. Wow. 

My girlfriend and I whooped loudly, gave each big high fives, and threw up our arms for the above photo. We then quickly scrambled back down to our waiting husbands, pleased beyond words at what we'd done. 

I'm not sure why some things that caused not a whisper of worry in my younger years now loom as big scary obstacles in my mid years, but I do know that whenever I break through my own curtain of fear, the reward in doing so is always immense.