Around the time I was retiring or thinking of retiring, I brought up the idea of taking a year to travel the U.S. once we both had finished our careers. Think college gap year except for retired people. We'd pick a few places, live there for a longer period of time, get immersed in the life of that city or town.
At first I think Lester thought I was crazy. But about a week later, he came back to me interested in this idea. Since then (spring of 2014), we've been thinking, talking, planning and researching all that is involved with this idea.
After deciding this is what we wanted to do, I agreed to start in Lincoln, Nebraska so that Lester could be a part of several Husker football games. Next we divided our year into 3 time frames: September-November, January-April, and May-August.
Due to the Husker games in September, we decided that the first leg of our adventure would be more scheduled or planned out. We will leave Nebraska, and explore places like Michigan, Niagara Falls, Indiana, and Kentucky.
My hope is that our second leg (southeast US) will be a slower pace with longer periods of time in each chosen locale.
Our third leg will be the western and southwestern US. Not quite sure what that will look like yet but our plan is to end up in Alaska on a cruise in July of 2017 to celebrate our 30th anniversary.
Perhaps year two will begin in Hawaii in the fall of 2017 as jumping off place for an international year of travel.
So, in July we will put our belongings into storage, give up our apartment, move our dog to Michael's care, trade our cars in for a new car, pack, and head out on August 23, 2016.
If you are interested in following along on our adventure, click on the follow button.
More to come later as we get closer to our departure date.
