Monday, August 16, 2010

A rare occurrence...

I reckon it had to happen someday, but we've been so fortunate in our eight months of retirement.  Yes, we finally came into contact with a true assh..., um, well, jerk.  I was here at the Thousand Trails Gloucester preserve and was driving past the camp store where a family was eating their ice-cream.   As I passed them, the "jerk" screamed for me to slow down.  I was doing 8 mph, much slower than most people go through the park, really slower than the golf carts that zoom around, but also admittedly 3 mph over what they ask.  So I stopped, yelled sorry for going 8 and started to drive away when he made another comment which was too much for my former police ego to take.  I backed up and said that I had apologized, but that 8 wasn't a horrible crime. He didn't want anything to do with an apology and said that my speed was more than 50%!! over the speed limit.  By this time I was seriously considering beating the sh.., um, stuffing out of the guy, but Val's calm voice saying that it wasn't worth dealing with the assh..., um, jerk made me stop.  So I shook my head and drove away with my blood pressure quite a bit higher than normal.
Since yesterday, I've thought long and hard about this little incident.  On one side I still feel that I should have put him in his place.  But I also feel fortunate that this was the first jerk that we've met in all of our RV travels.  And when you think of it that way, we're very lucky indeed.  Showing restraint and turning the other cheek was the right thing to do. It made us better people.
But he's still an asshole...

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Update, um, for the update...

We are back in Gloucester at Thousand Trails until August 25th.  We extended our stay here instead of traveling to Quinby, VA on the eastern shore since that would have been a prohibitive 4 hour drive to Richmond to see Val's sister Joanie.  We drive in to see her about every other day.  Joanie's progress is very slow, and as you can imagine for someone with a major stroke at age 42, she has her good and bad days.  We are still hoping for a great recovery!
It's been almost 4 months since my knee surgery in Florida, and I talked Val into hitting the ball around on the pickleball court here.  I had my snazzy, ocean blue carbon fiber knee brace on and it felt so good to hit some. But then two other people came, and I made the (STUPID) decision to play a little with them and not move quickly.  Uhhh, no.  Not in my competitive DNA.  10 points in I took a quick step forward and realized that this was a bad idea.  I was fine after some Advil and ice, but the doc was right.  Six months is the rule, and that's what I will do.  On a good note, we've been working out at the police academy twice a week, and the larger weights have really helped me rehab my knee. And we are back to riding the BMW again!  It feels great!

We get asked all the time how we like traveling and retirement.  We love both, but as I have expressed before, life can throw you some curve balls.  My knee injury was a setback and canceling our west coast trip due to Joanie's stroke was disappointing but the right thing to do. Despite what has happened, we both feel so fortunate that we can experience this lifestyle at our age, and we have no doubts about our decision.  We are meeting great people who, like us, have travel and adventure in their blood.

We have had the family house on the ocean at Fenwick Island  for 28 years and have never had the chance to spend more than a week or so at any given time.  Now that the renters are out for the summer, we've decided that since we're retired and still on the east coast, we should take advantage of the situation and live at the beach for a month.  It's not the west coast like we planned, but we really can't complain much, can we...