One Year Later

Now that I've been retired for a baker's year, it seems like a good time to take stock of things. I read a lot about people who atrophy after retirement; many even die soon thereafter. They've spent their whole lives working and suddenly find themselves feeling lost and worthless. That has definitely not been the case. It is true that there are occasions, especially recently, winter blahs and all, when I find myself feeling incredibly bored, but other than that, it has been a busy 13 months.

We have done a lot of traveling, probably about as much as I anticipated. There was the wonderful trip to Disney, of course. But we also took a four week trip out west visiting 8 resorts in Tennessee, Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, and Illinois and getting our first looks at both the Grand Canyon and the grandbaby. We spent almost two weeks getting a taste of the mountains of New England in Massachusetts, Vermont and Pennsylvania. And we also had return trips to the Smokies in Tennessee as well as Myrtle Beach and Edisto Island in South Carolina. We look forward to doing as much traveling this year, having already gotten started with a trip that took us to North Carolina, Panama City Beach, Orlando and Santee. We already have plans to visit Myrtle Beach (our favorite place) in both May and November. Since I tend to plan most trips at the last minute to take advantage of discounts, I don't know where else or when, but we will go as the spirit moves us.

Here at home we were able to do a number of things with the money I had received at retirement. This included all new badly needed appliances (except the washer and dryer, which, knock on wood, seem to be doing well despite their age). We also did some remodeling and now eat dinner in an actual dining room rather than off of TV trays. This was partly made possible because after the girls moved out we were able to redo the upstairs so that Kim now has a large craft room, and I did some rearranging to allow us to use the old front room as a dining room. We still have a lot more things that need to be done, but feel we've gotten a pretty good start.

One of the best things about no longer having a work schedule is the freedom to go hiking whenever we want, or at least whenever the weather allows. Before, it seemed like we could always count on rain whenever I had a day off, but now, well, if it rains today, there's always tomorrow. So altogether, we hiked several hundred miles last year, not counting treadmill miles this winter. As a result of that and some dietary adjustments, I lost 15 pounds. But the best part is that I have not put any of it back on this winter. If I can lose another 15 pounds this summer, I will be quite happy.

There are some things I thought I would be doing that I haven't gotten to yet. I thought I would be doing more blogging and personal writing. There are some other personal things that I am working on which will be finished sometime this year, and then perhaps those other things will fall into place. But that's actually good news I think. Who would have thought that even after retirement, there are still not enough hours in the day.

Why We Own With Wyndham

My wife and I are preparing to travel back home after a lovely trip that included a visit to Florida where we stayed at a place called Vacation Village, an RCI resort in Kissimmee. Normally we stay in Wyndham resorts where we have ownership, but sometimes we stray in order to have other experiences. We never have any major complaints when we stay with RCI, but there are always little things that remind us why we stay with Wyndham.



Here are a few of the things that happened this week. During the evening of the day we checked in we were quite surprised when another couple opened the door to our unit preparing to move in. Apparently the computer had also assigned them to the same unit, and so they had to drive back over to check in to get it straightened out. While they were doing that, it appears that our unit keys were also invalidated as we discovered the next morning when we tried to get back into our unit after going out for a walk. We had to knock on someone's else's door to use their phone to get new key cards. Fortunately someone answered the phone when we called. I mention that because most of the time when I have called for whatever reason, there is either a recording saying that everyone is busy or else the phone just rings and rings. This has never happened at any Wyndham resort. And I believe this is the first resort we have ever stayed at that actually charges a $25 amenities fee to cover things like wireless internet and use of the pools. In most cases those things are covered by the rental fee.



But the biggest difference I find between Wyndham and other places is the consistency and quality of the, let's call them, products that you get in your unit. The bed, the cabinets, the silver ware, the dishes, the pots and pans, the coffee maker, to name just a few things, none of these things are Wyndham quality. Wyndham doesn't work on the cheap. For whatever faults the company does have (and I could certainly list a few), they do go out of their way to make your stay a pleasant one. And they are willing to spend the money on quality rather than on just getting by. And whenever there is an issue, you dial 0 and the problem is immediately solved.



While we were at Vacation Village, we agreed to sit through their 2 hour sales pitch in exchange for an $80 gift card. During the pitch we learned a little bit about how their point system works and how much it costs to purchase. It's different from Wyndham's but of course they're only going to emphasize the parts they consider selling points, which makes it impossible to discover if their system would be better; i.e. would RCI points that cost the same as Wyndham points get you more vacation opportunities. One thing the guy kept emphasizing was that RCI's maintenance fees are lower than Wyndham's, again a point impossible to prove based on the information they give you.



And that's when it hit me. I didn't care.



I realized that if a little higher maintenance fee is the price we pay to ensure that whenever we go to a Wyndham resort we know exactly what kind of forks and mixing bowls and coffee maker and towels and sheets, etc, etc, that we’re going to have and if something isn’t up to par there will be someone at the other end of the phone who will immediately fix it; well, I’m willing to pay that little extra.



Whoever would have thought that such a cheapskate as me would ever get to that place.

 

Outer Banks

I was going through some old keepsakes and came across a journal I had kept on a trip to the Outer Banks in 1990. What follows is a synopsis, trying to keep it short enough to be readable, but include as many highlights as I can.

We left Cleveland on Friday, August 3, met up with the Berg's, and traveled through Ohio and Pennsylvania, stopping for a picnic lunch before heading south through Maryland and a small slice of West Virginia. There was one misadventure when we tried to get gas before going through the Hampton Tunnel. We had a hard time finding an open gas station - we even tried to pump gas at one before realizing it was closed - until a kindly cab driver directed us to an open station. We spent the first night at a Red Roof Inn in Cheasapeakc, but as we pulled into the parking area, the fire alarms went off, so we had to wait and watch while police and fire units checked everything out and let us in.

When we got to the Outer Banks on Saturday, it was too early to check in, so we visited the Wright Brothers Memorial. There are markers showing the landing spots and distances of their first four flights and I found it interesting to see how close together the first three markers are, but then the fourth one went quite a distance. There's also a state park called Jockey's Ridge, home of the tallest sand dunes on the east coast, which are over 100 feet high. Due to shifting winds, they constantly change shape, but stay in relatively the same place from year to year.

The community we stayed in, Whalehead Beach, is almost as far north as you can go making it a great place to stay if you're looking to be out of the hustle, bustle, and congestion of Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills. Although the house wasn't ready on time, when we finally were able to move in, we found it much to our liking. The living area is on the top floor making for a great view. The ocean is somewhat obstructed by the row of houses in front of us, but at least we can see it. There's no grass, just brush growing out of the sand. The floor underneath contains the four bedrooms. Andrew and Liz shared the small bedroom with the twin beds, and the other four girls stayed in the room with 2 sets of bunk beds.

I noticed right off that you can feel the house sway when you're sitting down. This is considered a safety feature that gives the house a better chance of surviving a hurricane. A little disconcerting though.

Though already late, we went down to the beach for an hour. This being my first time ever at an ocean beach, the salt taste is what I remember most. Liz tried going in the water, but got hit with a wave and decided to stay in the ankle deep area. Leah just stayed on the beach after seeing that. Sarah was hesitant, but did all right. The Berg's were used to it, so all plunged right in.

On Sunday, we rented some beach equipment, including boogie boards, and spent the day at the beach. The boards allowed the little ones to catch waves and ride them in farther than the adults. I did catch two good waves and found I liked it. That night we picked up a lot of shells and saw a million sand crabs scurrying around. The full moon makes a great reflection on the water.

It rained on Monday, so we drove into town to hit the stores. We also noticed that gas prices were up again for the third time in four days, as gas companies were taking advantage of the Iraq-Kuwait situation. (It was $1.14 when we left for the trip, and $1.33 when we got back. Horrors!)

That afternoon, we stopped at a restaurant for what we planned to be our one big meal out this week, but after we were seated and were getting our drinks, we realized it was just a sandwich place, so we got up and walked out. This seemed to embarass Erin greatly.

Monday night, we went to Roanoke Island to see an outdoor drama called the Lost Colony. It was very well done, and I noted that Andy Griffith had gotten his start playing the part of Sir Walter Raleigh in this play. Elizabeth was able to answer some questions we asked about it on the drive back.

On Tuesday, we watched one of the wild mustangs as he made his way into the neighborhood, stopping to rest in the yard of the house next door. We went over to take pictures, and a lady drove up with some medicine for the horse. She explained that he was sickly and had been beaten and run out of the herd after his mother was killed by a car last year. Whenever the herd comes across him, he is forced to vacate the area. Sure enough, a while later when the seven other horses came through the area, a skirmish broke out between the sick horse and one of the other stallions until he agreed to leave.

We went to the beach for a few hours, even though it rained off and on - after all, that's what we were there for -  but the water was very cold, so we mostly laid around. Sarah and Elizabeth have gotten to love the water by this time, but Leah will only go in if someone carries her, and even then will only stay a minute.

More rain on Wednesday meant more shopping, but we did get to play putt-putt during a break in the rain. There was a wheel game in one of the shops that two of us spun, each winning a $30 coupon to the Sportsmen's Restaurant. All we had to do was sit through a 90 minute sales pitch for time share the next day. We also had our dinner out at the Dune's Restaurant. The food was good, but this was also when I learned that restaurants had started automatically adding the tip to the check. At the point, in my view, it is no longer a tip; it's a service charge. We also went back to the sand dune, climbed the highest one and watched as the kids had a super time running, rolling, sliding and falling down that hill.

Although the sun was shining on Thursday, we decided to go to the sales pitch because, after all, $60 is $60. This was when I first learned about time share, and although $8000 was something we could not afford for one vacation week a year, I noted that I would like to do this someday. Although the pitch was long and the salesman rude and pushy, the free breakfast was worth it. The pancakes were as big as frisbees and were served on huge trays.

When we got back to the beach, the weather was perfect. Leah started dabbling in the shallow water a little bit. Elizabeth and Andrew were totally oblivious to the rest of the world. And we all got sunburned because we neglected to put on our sunscreen due to the cloudiness.

Friday was a perfect final day - the kind of day in which, even if it were the only good beach day of the week, would determine you to go back again. Skies were partly cloudy, temperature in the 80s. The water felt great. We swam, we ate sandwiches, we laid on the beach, we played paddle ball, and we did it all wearing our sunscreen. The hardest thing in the world was leaving that beach at 5:00. Shortly before we did however, Eric came screaming out of the water saying she had a crab in her bathing suit. Somewhere along the line he had managed to disembark, though, so there was no actual proof.

One more notable thing happened that day. We had packed as much into the cars that evening as we could to save time the next morning, and evidently while we were doing this, hundreds, perhaps thousands of sand fleas managed to get into the house, and they were covering the beds and were throughout the second floor. The outside doors were covered with others trying to get in. We shook out the blankets as best we could, turned out the lights and went back upstairs. When we came back down later, all but David and Kathy's bed seemed to be all right, so they slept elsewhere.

On Saturday, we split up to take separate routes back home, as I wanted to drive up Skyline drive in Virginia. We made several stops along the drive to look at spectacular views of the surrounding mountains and valleys. During the night at the motel, a scary thing happened as some guy was pounding on the window at 3:15 and then again at 5:20. The second time I managed to get to the window before he left and asked what he wanted. He looked surprised like he was expecting someone else and he left.

On Sunday we toured Skyline Caverns and rode the miniature train before we continued our trip home.

Post Election Thoughts

It’s been one month since the election, so I’ve had time to try to think things through and put them in a little perspective. My feeling about what the election means for our country hasn’t changed. I believe we’ve reached a tipping point where there are too many takers and not enough producers and givers. Politicians continue to pretend that we can tax the minority enough to support the majority, but as the supported class continues to grow, the productive class sees less and less reason to produce.

Now I know that just saying that marks me as one who hates the underclass and thinks that they’re all lazy. But nothing could be further from the truth. You don’t have to have a majority of dependent people to ruin a society. It’s a question of a culture that has slowly developed over the past half a century or so, and that has picked up tremendous speed in the last few years. Our country is in deep, deep economic turmoil, we are worse off now than we were four years ago, and yet we have handily reelected a man who has to bear the primary responsibility for it.

Bob Costas says that he is not against people having guns; he is worried about a gun culture, by which I assume he means a mentality whereby people think of guns as an integral part of society rather than as something that is occasionally needed to fix a temporary problem. That’s how I think of welfare. It’s great that our country is prosperous enough to help people fix a temporary unemployment problem, or who are simply incapable of working. But it seems that welfare has become a culture, or a state of permanent mind. It is not a temporary fix as it was intended. Entire generations of people grow up knowing no other way of life. Once that population gets large enough, it brings down the rest of society with it.

One of the founding fathers, I forget which one, said something to the effect that democracy only works until the people realize that they can vote anything they want for themselves. That’s where I’m afraid we are at.

The other thing that keeps intruding on my thoughts is the way in which Christianity is being bashed more and more every year. That’s also something that seems to have picked up speed in the past few years. When the Obama administration attempted to force religious employers to provide insurance for their employees that would guarantee them access to abortion, the employers naturally objected. The telling point is that the administration couldn’t even understand why they were objecting. That’s how ingrained anti-Christian thinking has become. The Chick-Fil-A fiasco was another telling incident the way some politicians and media people vehemently reacted to a business owner expressing his Christian viewpoint. They didn’t even care that there has never been any adverse action against any gay person; they just couldn’t tolerate the fact that someone could even have Christian thoughts on the subject.

There are many other examples of this sort of intolerance against Christians, and my point is not only that the number of instances of Christian bashing is increasing, but that they are becoming more and more extreme. As the secular mind becomes more and more entrenched in the world’s philosophy, it becomes more and more impossible for it to comprehend that there can even be another way of thinking. It seems like a prelude to persecution.

I truly believe that these two things, an entrenched culture of dependency and a virulent hatred of Christianity, are what is bringing our country down. Can this be reversed? Yes. Do I think it will be? No. Do I like it? Of course not. It scares the daylights out of me. But if the loss of our freedoms and the persecution of Christians are some of the things that need to happen before the Lord returns, then we will have to deal with it. And rejoice when the end comes.

He's Alive

There's a song called He's Alive. The version I have is by Mark Murphy and is probably about 20 years old. Recently I heard a version by some other artist on the radio. When it first started playing, I thought, That's interesting, it starts out at a faster tempo than the Mark Murphy version, which starts out rather slow and almost recited rather than sung. But then as the song went on, I realized that the whole thing was in the same tempo; there's no build up, no anticipation; it's just several verses of a song. It just doesn't work.

The first 2:45 of the Murphy version is almost mournful as Peter doubts and speculates as to whether Jesus is really alive as Mary claims, especially in light of his recent denials of Jesus. Then the build up runs about 45 seconds: "Then suddenly the air was filled with a strange and sweet perfume/ A light that shone from everywhere drove shadows from the room/ Jesus stood before me with His arms held open wide/ And I fell down on my knees and just clung to Him and cried./ He raised me to my feet and as I looked into His eyes/ Love was shining out from Him like the sunlight from the skies/ Guilt and my confusion disappeared in sweet release/ Every fear I ever had just melted into peace."

And then the orchestra breaks into the crescendo and a powerful voice sings: He's Alive, He's Alive, He's Alive and I'm forgiven/ Heaven's gates are open wide; lines that are repeated twice more, seemingly more powerful each time. I find it impossible to listen to, or even think about it without feeling a great tearful swelling inside.

It's a song that's meant to be experienced, not just heard.

Coming Home

Because vacation was so good, we decided to take our time coming home. After we checked out of the resort, we went to the Lost Canyon and rode the horse drawn cart through the narrow canyon. The trip actually ends right about where the resort skyway goes over the canyon near the ziplines.

Then we drove over and visited with Liz for a few minutes and toured her house. I know it's Eric's house too, but writing "their house" didn't sound grammatically correct. We drove a while longer and decided to lunch at Culver's. It's actually pretty good, sort of an upscale McDonald's.

By this time I was concerned about Chicago traffic on a Friday afternoon, but we had no problem the route we took (thanks, Leah.) The problem began when we exited I-80 to go to US 30 to get to Warsaw where our motel was located. We exited I-80 earlier than we needed to so that we could avoid the construction heading into Indiana. Big mistake. Traffic on US 30 going into Indiana is horrific. And the traffic lights all seemed designed to create the longest traffic jams.

The rest of the day and most of the travel day Saturday was routine, until we got to the Days Inn in Sandusky. Without a doubt one of the worst motels I have ever been in. There was a terrible stench in the room, and since nothing in the room, like linens, curtains or rug smelled up close, we could only conclude that there must be mold or something growing in the walls. It was made worse by the fact that the air conditioner hadn't been turned on. We couldn't really complain because the couple at the check in desk spoke such broken English, it was difficult to communicate with them. We turned on the air full blast, emptied a can of Glade and went out to dinner. By the time we got back I could tolerate it, although Kim said this morning that it was the worst night's sleep she had on the whole trip. She's always been wary of Days Inn, and now I am cured as well.

The only reason we stayed there instead of driving straight home was so we could visit Kelley's Island on Sunday. That turned out to be fun. We took the Jet Express Ferry across from Sandusky, rented a golf cart and toured the island. There's not as much to do there is at Put-In-Bay, but the more relaxed atmosphere is definitely to my liking.

So now we're home, feverishly planning our next trip. Branson, maybe?

Post Visit

There's not a lot to say about our recent stay at the resort in Wisconsin, because the people I care about the most were all there, so they all know what a great time it was. My only regret was not having more energy to be able to keep up with them. But I guess when you're the old patriarch, allowances have to be made.

After the girls and their husbands were gone, we discovered that there is even more to the Wilderness than we thought. The part we had walked and thought we were at the end really wasn't even half of it. That place is just humungous. So we did more walking, but never did cover the whole place.

We did more old people stuff, like walking around the mall, driving down to a state park, and riding a horse drawn wagon. We wanted to hike on one of the trails at the park, without realizing how difficult it was going to be. It was marked "moderate" on the map and was only a few miles long, but the change in elevation turned out to be at least several hundred feet, and much of it was spent climbing up rocks. It was exhausting. I'm really glad we didn't try one of the "difficult" trails.

Checking out was difficult, but that's life. Vacations end, and one always has to get back to reality. But it was really great to see everyone.