On November 4, I had a couple of appointments in Springfield. The first was my annual check up with my cardiologist. I had a heart attack 5 years ago. In many ways, I see the heart attack as a blessing in disguise. That incident turned up the heat on my plans to get retired as early as possible, and get on to living our dreams. The check up was non-eventful and the doctor said I was doing great and asked if there was anything she could do for me. I simply said, “You already did”. They saved my life by putting a stint in my heart, which opened up a 100% blockage and gave me the ability to travel and explore the way I have done this past year.
I then met with my financial advisor. He and his assistant wanted to hear about our adventures. He told me that hearing stories like that is why he enjoys his job. He told me that all is looking good and that he would keep up with my blog to live vicariously through me until his time to explore will come.
I look at these people as part of our team. They take care of the uninteresting, but very important things that allow me to stay focused on the interesting and important parts of my life, like spending time with my grand kids. Here is a shot of Amelia that Shannon took the other day:
After my appointments yesterday, I went over to visit Shannon and Brian and the kids. I got to hold Amelia for about 2 hours. She just slept in my arms. It is so awesome to have time to do the interesting and important, like that.
Here is a picture of Amelia in the beautiful blanket that my Mom sent her. It may be the softest blanket, I have ever felt. Shannon put this on Facebook, but I am not sure if Mom and Dad will see it there.
On Friday night (the day before Halloween), we all went to dinner at Olive Garden. The kids got in costume for a later trick or treating outing at Bass Pro Shops. It was a crazy dinner, but they did not throw us out.
Jacob was there also, but he does not allow pictures.
While I was at Bass Pro, I made a purchase with a gift card that was given to me at my retirement party by a dear friend Jeff. I have been wanting a fly tying kit for a long time and now I have it. As I get more time to do some tying, I will write about it. This is exactly what I need, another hobby. I think the key to an enjoyable retirement is to find things that you like to do or always wanted to do and do them. I can honestly say, I have not been bored a single second since I retired.
Life at the ranch has been going well. I have been doing some riding and starting to get back into riding shape. I have also been doing something that I really enjoy. I have been working with some beginners teaching them what I can about riding technique and hopefully showing them how to enjoy riding more. Riding at the ranch is very difficult for most new riders. It is very rocky and that creates difficulty. Many experienced riders don’t like riding here because of the difficulty. With the proper technique and bike set up it can be a blast. We like to say, if you can ride here, you can ride anywhere.
It is hard to believe that we have been back at the ranch for a month already. I have accomplished a number of things, but I have an endless list of to-do’s. I clearly will not get them all done while we are here this time. It will be just two more months before we head south for the winter.
Thanks to Shannon for all of the pictures in this post. I have not been taking pictures as I should. I am still sorting the 10,000 pictures I took on our trip west.
“Opportunity” is a strange word. It is much like “Potential”. Neither is worth a darn unless you embrace them and take some risk and exploit them. You biggest risk is failure, but accomplishment without the risk of failure is no accomplishment at all.
How is that for a little philosophy to get you thinking.
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