Not Wasting Away Again

January 25, 2016 Rob Sims Leave a comment

Milepost 1-25-16 -at a VRBO in the Dominican Republic

Our list of reasons to leave the northern winters is a short list for good reason. Who needs more than a couple of good reasons to leave misery behind?

Physical well-being. For many of us it goes beyond the discomfort of a chill running down your spine when the north wind blows. The lack of sunshine and the short days in Michigan in the wintertime have a noticeable debilitating effect on human beings that becomes even more bothersome as they age. Joint aches, muscle pain, and an overall lethargy that makes you want to go to bed right after supper all combine to make life dark and depressing. Not to mention that if you do actually venture outside for a walk or a trip to the store, you may well slip on the ice, split your head open and end up at the hospital for stitches. Winter is actually life-threatening for highway travelers, as indicated by traffic death statistics for the winter months. Every snow storm ends up being the last one for some unfortunate travelers as their car slides off the road and hits a tree.
Emotional well-being. There is a reason why February is the month when the most suicides take place, and I am sure the long winter’s night of the soul has something to do with it. Cabin fever may sound entirely benign until it goes beyond restlessness and brings on bona fide depression and a sense of hopelessness. A feeling of being trapped in a dark place is not a healthful mental state for the human soul. There is a sense that you are wasting away while hunkering in a human hibernation mode until spring.
Financial well-being. Winter can be expensive when you are paying to heat the house. You end up caught in a mental and emotional tug-of-war as you shiver while the thermostat is pinned at 65 degrees to save money. 75 would be a lot more comfortable, but the utility bills will rise exponentially. And the lights are on longer as the days are shorter, so the electric bill takes off as well. Instead of being out in the yard in the evening, you are sitting in front of the TV… and consuming even more electricity. And that means more popcorn and potato chips.
That’s enough. Who needs more than 3 reasons to head south in the winter? Is self-preservation not enough?

(Note: I realize that I am not speaking for winter sports enthusiasts. Go out and sled, ski and skate while you are young, and have fun.)

So What Do You Do With Yourself?

Having escaped the northern winters and living as the proverbial snowbirds, we have been asked this question a few times. Those who have not retired yet wonder the same thing. What do we do to occupy our time?

It is a question that no one can answer for you, because the answer rests entirely on your personality and interests and physical state. If you can’t think of something to do, maybe you shouldn’t retire. A former co-worker of mine is still teaching school in his 70’s because he can’t imagine what he will do with time on his hands. He says he will die teaching – and I believe him.

Lots of folks will move to retirement communities that surround golf courses or marinas. That is perfect if you love golf or boats.

For Kaye and me, having open spaces for walking and biking is important. We hope to stay physically active as long as we possibly can.

As a photographer, I seldom land in a place that is without visual opportunity. When it does happen, I have always been able to find something within a short drive.

Fruit Market edit w quad.jpg — A short drive on the quad took me past this colorful farm market on the way to the beach.

As a musician, I have been a little bit more frustrated as my piano is heavy and not very mobile and presents certain logistical challenges. Still, I have found ways to express my musical self in almost every place we have stayed. A couple of years ago I found a fellow musician who had set up a recording studio in a tent next to his motor home in a campground in Alabama. We collaberated on a song or two. Cool.

Escaping to Margaritaville

This winter we flew to the tropics where we are renting a vacation house near the beach in a small fishing village. Our daily walks consist of sauntering downtown to the French bakery for a croissant or a pizza, or a short walk in the other direction to one of several palm-lined beaches. A swim in the ocean is always available – and the water is 80 degrees.

A twilight stroll on the beach can be good medicine for the soul — A twilight stroll on the beach can be good medicine for both body and soul

In the apartment, we are able to stream movies to our laptops while lying on the bed or chatting with the kids and grandkids back home through social media or FaceTime. We read books that we download for Kindle. We journal about our adventures. Kaye and I are both actually writing books this winter.

Adaptation is necessary for a successful migration in the wintertime, but every new place offers its own smorgasbord of opportunities.

If boredom sets in, we look for ways to change things up a bit.

And remind ourselves that at least we are not shivering in the northern snow and wondering how we will stay warm if the power goes off during a winter storm.

If we have a worry here it has more to do with blowing out a flip flop or stepping on a pop top. We are not wasting away this winter.*

And just so you know, we are not on vacation either. For us, this is life.

I wonder if these guys will sell me that frozen concoction that helps me hang on.*

___________________________________________________

*Lyrics from Jimmy Buffet’s song, Margaritaville.

Side Roads

What’s Your Travel Mode?

January 18, 2016 Rob Sims Leave a comment

Milepost 1-18-16 – at a vacation rental in the tropics

Travelers come in all sizes and shapes, and so do their travel preferences and their budgets. Not everybody can afford to start out with a 40-foot motor home towing a boat. Young families usually start out with tents or pop-up campers and graduate to more comfortable amenities later on.

When our kids were young and we had foster kids and foreign exchange students, we drove a full-size van every day of the week, so when we wanted to head out on a road trip, we just threw the tent and cooler – and the porta-potty – into the van with our sleeping bags and away we went. It was rather an all-purpose vehicle. We could only afford one vehicle at a time, so it had to be versatile. We stayed in campgrounds or in the national forests where the camping was free.

A van is a very versatile vehicle for road trips with a family.

But the budget is not the only consideration that has a bearing on our travel mode.

Destination is another. You can’t very well take a motor home when you are flying to the tropics for the winter or traveling to Italy for an art tour. On the other hand, if you are planning to hike along the Appalachian Trail you would need the lightest of tents and backpacks. Weight would be a consideration that might limit you to one can of Spam for the entire trip. Darn!

Further, the type of travel comes into play. What is the experience you are looking for? If you want to motorcycle the length of Route 66 with other Harley enthusiasts, your equipment is pretty much going to be determined by the requirements of that particular mode of travel.

Suitcase travel is a mode that will take you a lot of places but not to the backcountry. It is the thing for staying in hotels, bed & breakfasts, cruises and vacation rentals, but you’ll need to switch to a backpack if you are hiking down through the Andes in South America.

Since we hit the road, Kaye and I have frequently switched modes when we were ready for some variety. We drove the Alaska Highway – the ultimate road trip – with a pickup and a fifth wheel camper which we stayed in for months at a time. That was how we also did our work-camping where we earned a winter campsite in southern California by working 20 hours a week at the campground.

Last fall, when I wanted to head off on a solo photo shoot, I threw a small tent, an air mattress and a cooler into the back of the pickup and took off for the state forest in northern Michigan where the facilities were rustic and the stress level almost non-existent. (Towing a fifth wheel is not entirely stress-free, especially through cities and along truck routes.)

It is entirely likely that over the course of a lifetime most of us will experience an evolution of travel modes, starting out small and gradually growing as our travel tastes change over time.

Mind you, I do recommend planning. It might be nasty to invest in a huge camping rig (with a monthly payment to match) and then wake up some morning in a crowded RV park with the realization that what you really wanted was to sail around the Bahamas, gunk-holing from one sheltered cove to the next.

On the other hand, there’s probably no harm (other than the cost) in trying things out. If one mode of travel doesn’t suit your fancy or you get tired of it, try something else for awhile.

This has been our objective since we sold the house a while ago and took to the road. Let’s see where this takes us. We’ll try RV-ing for a while and then change it up when we need some variety.

Right now, the RV sits in storage, the plumbing winterized against the Michigan cold and snow, while Kaye and I sit on the veranda of our vacation rental in the tropics in a quiet little fishing village at the end of the road in the Dominican Republic.

Dinner on the beach is part of the setting here in the tropics.

Hey, whatever blows your hair back (if you have any hair). When it comes to travel, almost anything goes – at the right time in your life and at the appropriate price tag, and in the preferred mode.

Hey, go see stuff! And have fun!

Photograph (36) — Our daughters thought a Conestoga wagon might be a fun mode of travel when we were touring the Southwest.

The Dominican Beach

Oh, the (Zany) Things We Will See!

January 14, 2016 Rob Sims Leave a comment

Milepost 1-14-16 Las Galeras, Dominican Republic

Travel will entirely change your world view. And part of that is that very often it just offers really unusual sights that are not on the itinerary. My experience has been that nary an adventure transpires without bonus stuff thrown in, little surprises that add interest to the story.

We have moved to the Dominican Republic for the winter, one of our favorite and most affordable tropical destinations, and our biggest surprise so far was the sighting of a pirate ship that ran aground on the beach next to the restaurant where we were having lunch with our French hosts.

The beach-going vacationers were called on to help free the heavy old vessel and they were eager to dive in and help. Well, actually, diving wasn’t necessary as the water was only a meter deep.

Okay, everybody, put down your pina colada and heave ho!

Their efforts were futile, and the seamen decided to try towing their ship off the sand using a motor boat. Alas, they couldn’t find enough rope to reach to deeper water where the boat was waiting so they had to give that up.

DSCN4082 — Hmm, not enough rope to reach the tow boat.

When we left they were attempting to push the ship seaward with a backhoe. I don’t know if they were successful with that; I think there is a limit to how far into the ocean you can drive a backhoe.

Pirates can be quite resourceful when their ship is beached. Let’s use a backhoe to free it

So we had some pretty amusing dinner entertainment – and an unanticipated photo op.

The surprises that the travel life offers are not always fun. I am sure the ship’s owner was not amused by his predicament.

Our motto for travel has always been, “Prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and take what comes.”

Because you never know for sure what you are in for when you set sail on life’s sea.

Side Roads

How Travel Ruined My Life

January 1, 2016 Rob Sims 2 Comments

Milepost 1-1-16 In a vacation rental at Rockford, MI

I am spoiled for the ordinary.

As a summer camper and beachcomber, my dad was the one who did it to me and my siblings. I remember the day he took the whole family to Sears to buy our first cabin tent that would sleep all 7 of us. I have precious memories of mountains we climbed and trails we hiked while hauling that heavy tent on the luggage rack of the family stationwagon.

Dad overloaded the old station-wagon and then drove it along the beach as far as he could to reach a remote campsite. — Dad overloaded the old station-wagon with camping gear and then drove it along the beach as far as he could to reach a remote campsite.

And I have done it to my kids likewise, dragging them around the country to national parks and seashores in an old van, and later, offshore to foreign countries for months at a time.

In the heart of the Rockies, my daughters explored the ruins of an old ghost town. — In the heart of the Rocky Mountains, my daughters explored the ruins of an old ghost town.

Our family shopped at the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall tienda for daily provisions in the Dominican Republic. — Our family shopped at the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall tienda for daily provisions when we lived in the Dominican Republic.

And as a mentor, I have done it to a whole lot of other people’s kids as well.

A youth volunteer at the local church for 35 years, I took kids camping, hiking, canoeing, and spelunking. My wife and I even took them on cross-cultural trips to underdeveloped countries to see how the rest of the world lives.

Our girls posed with the neighbors where we lived for one school year in Santiago, Dominican Republic. — Our girls posed with the neighbors where we lived for one school year in Santiago, Dominican Republic while teaching in an international school.

One of my mentees once complained to me, “Bob, you have ruined my life; I am no longer satisfied with normal American life.”

Okay, so he said it with a bit of tongue-in-cheek, but there is real truth to the matter. The American dream sits at the top of a ladder to success whose rungs are installed in a standard sequence that goes like this: Do well in school so you can get a good education so you can get a good job so you can marry the right person and provide for the perfect family and live in a nice house (with a mortgage) in a good neighborhood and have two cars and a boat in the garage so you can eventually retire and travel or play golf all day.

Feeding your inner travel beast too early can change the order and mess things up. I used to tell my mentees that “What you feed is what will grow.”

Well, if the thing that you feed is a wanderlust, you may become dissatisfied with the normal sequence of American life and want to get out early. You would have been better off to never leave home in the first place. You wouldn’t know what you were missing and would be content to stay put. You should never have opened the cover of that first National Geographic magazine.

My daughters have traveled just about as far as they could get from their home in rural Michigan. — My daughters have traveled just about as far as they could from their home in rural Michigan.

So, I am all about blowing up the status quo. And ruining people for the ordinary. And I will never apologize, because the end result of an inconveniently interrupted American lifestyle is actually a much richer existence.

Nobody arrives at their deathbed saying, “I wish I had traveled less and seen less of the world.” or “I wish I had not met those foreigners and broadened my world view.”

I hiked the backcountry at Denali - where my youngest daughter lives and works every summer. — I recently hiked the backcountry at Denali with my daughters – where my youngest daughter now lives and works every summer.

So if I can feed your wanderlust I will do it. I would love to blow up your common life by helping you get out the door and on the road.

Because I know you will someday thank me for it like I thank my dad for blowing up his modest household budget one summer by purchasing that expensive canvas tent at Sears Roebuck & Company.

But you need to have your eyes wide open. What you feed is what will grow. Feeding your inner gypsy is dangerous. It could devastate the comfortable lifestyle you now enjoy. You could end up selling your house and hitting the road – like me.

And discovering an alternate universe, as it were, in the next state and around the world.

Yes, travel has demolished my routine.

And it can do the same for you.