Tag: travel

Rocky Mountain High

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

We try not to travel much in the summer for two reasons. First, everyone is traveling, so places are crowed. Secondly, we live in a beautiful area during the summer, and I want to stay home and enjoy it. Heck, people travel to be here in the summer months. But now, Labor Day is over, the kids are back in school, and it is the off season for many travel destinations. Sounds like the perfect time for two retirees to pack up their bags for a little mini vacation. (Mini means not too far away.) Oddly enough, we have never spent any time in Colorado, even though it is a short two-hour flight from our home. We have dropped down in Denver briefly many times, or spent a few nights there at conferences, but that is about it. We have never explored the Rocky Mountains. It was time for a little “Rocky Mountain High.” Warning: proceed with caution – photo bomb ahead.

As I mentioned in my previous post, it has been a busy summer, which seems to be continuing into the fall. Thus, we could only carve out four nights to be away. We dropped down in Denver early in the morning and jumped into our rental car. The first stop was Golden, Colorado. I did not even know it existed, but what a charming little town. It’s claim to fame is that Adolph Coors opened the first Coors brewery there. It is still a thriving brewery, so we had to stop in to see it and do a little test tasting. The town of Golden also has a festive main street with Clear Creek running through it.

We enjoyed the paved walking path along Clear Creek in Golden, Colorado.

If we had time, I definitely would have rented a tube and joined the float down the river (above). But we had reservations that night in Breckenridge, Colorado, so we headed over the (11,000 feet) pass to Breckenridge. What a lovely town tucked up in the Colorado Mountains with Breckenridge and Copper Mountain ski resorts close by. We found the rest we craved in this lovely town tucked in the Rocky Mountains. We stayed at the Lodge at Breckenridge for two nights. It is an older lodge, so the bathrooms were small, but it maintained the cozy wood beam, mountain lodge look and the views were amazing. Bonus that a hot breakfast and free parking were included.

The Lodge at Breckenridge sits up on the mountain with beautiful views.
Now this is my idea of having morning coffee (left). We had an amazing view of Breckenridge Ski Resort from our deck (right).

Breckenridge was probably our favorite town. It had a charming main street with lots of restaurants, shops and pubs. We stopped to visit the iconic troll – what a work of art! My grands would have loved this character.

My grands would have loved this troll in the woods.

We underestimated the change in altitude. After dinner that evening, we returned to our car, which was parked a couple blocks up hill, and we were both out of breath. It felt like COVID all over again. I know that I have not exercised as much as usual this summer, but it shocked me, until we realized that it was from the “thin air.”

To go even higher, the next day we traveled across Independence Pass (elevation 12,095 feet). I am not a fan of heights, so the drive was a little unnerving, to say the least. But the views! Amazing to see the Continental Divide from that vantage point. We are such small specs in the universe.

It was windy and chilly (not shorts weather) up over 12,000 feet overlooking the continental divide.

We headed over the pass for a short stop in Aspen, Colorado. Not impressed. The downtown was full of VERY expensive name brand shops and there wasn’t really a fun, downtown area otherwise. We walked around for about an hour and then headed to Vail, Colorado for the night. We expected Vail to be what Aspen was, so it was a pleasant surprise to see a Bavarian themed village with brick walks winding through it. We were fortunate to hit the last night of Oktoberfest, so we enjoyed a German beer and listened to the Polkanauts play. They describe their band as, “bringing Poka fear and destruction to the masses!” They play metal, rock, punk and surf songs with a decided polka twist. So different and fun to listen to. Afterwards, we meandered down the brick streets to Alpenrose for a German meal of sausage, a pretzel and fondue.

The Polkanauts (left). All of the streets, shops and restaurants had either a ski or Bavarian theme.
Mr. U eating dinner at Alpenrose (left). Same restaurant with a night view (right).
Vail had beautiful flowers and mood lighting everywhere.
We enjoyed a soak in the hot tub at our hotel after a full day of sightseeing (right).

While Vail was overpriced, as expected (you pay about 1/3 more for everything,) it was worth it for the night. We stayed at Tivoli Lodge in Vail Village, so we were able to walk everywhere, although they have free bus/shuttle services available too. Our hotel provided a complimentary bottle of wine on arrival, and we took advantage of the hot tub before bed that night. They also had e-bikes to use, so we took a bike ride the next morning before checking out. Both of us had a little “holier-than-thou” attitude toward e-bikes, but I have to admit that we really enjoyed using them. Something we may consider… in the future. There was a lovely, paved bike/walking path along the river. What a great way to start the day, but we were excited to jump in the car and head through Rocky Mountain National Park.

Wow! The views in the park were amazing. I could hear John Denver quietly singing in my ear, “rocky mountain high.” We came across several herds of elk. Just for the record, a male elk with those big horns is a bull and not a buck. Won’t make that mistake again.

The elk in the park were undisturbed by the gawking humans.
There were quite a few glaciers near the summit in Rocky Mountain National Park.

We spent our final night in Estes Park and enjoyed a delicious, abundant BBQ dinner at Smokin’ Dave’s BBQ. The price was a welcome respite after Aspen and Vail.

Delicious BBQ dinner (no greens on this platter). Almost ran into this guy (literally) on our way home from dinner (right). Apparently, these are the street gangs that roam at night in Estes Park.

After our night in Estes Park we headed back through Boulder towards Denver to catch an evening flight home. It was a delightful mini get-a-way that gave me a new appreciation for the song “Rocky Mountain High.” Who needs mood altering drugs when you can get high on nature?

Boulder, Colorado

Retirement Life

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

If you had told me a few years ago, before I retired myself, that retirement life could be so busy that you don’t have enough time, I would have scoffed and mumbled under my breath, “right, you just don’t manage your time well.” Now that I am retired, I realize that the beauty of it is… I don’t have to manage my time well. Such as it has been these past couple weeks. When I started this blog, I committed to publish a post every week. I love to write. It helps me breathe. However, these past couple weeks have left me with little extra time to write a blog post. What could keep this retired person so busy? Well, quite a lot really.

Spring cleaning and decorating

The sunshine shows all of the dust and smudge prints that have accumulated over the long, dark winter, so it was time to do a little spring cleaning. Chores do not go away once you are retired, unless you hire out to have them done, which I have a hard time doing because, well…I am retired after all. Besides, it always feels good to take down the winter decorations and freshen the house up a bit for spring.

I found the beehive last year and decided to it was worth a little roadsidea decorating.

Grandkids

It is wonderful to have relaxed time to be a grandparent. When we were raising our own kids, it felt like I was always rushing or multitasking. Now I can enjoy uninterrupted time with my grands. I have been watching our new grandbaby for a few hours every week while my DIL returns to work. Precious time where I just focus on her.

Just a fun bundle of cuddles and play.

My other granddaughter turned eight last week. We celebrated with a grandma nana date. I took her out for a high tea. We both dressed up and enjoyed tea with cream and sugar, little tea sandwiches and scones with clotted cream and jam. We learned a little bit about the history of high tea. Precious uninterrupted time together.

Of course, we had to try on every hat at the tearoom but settled on the ones we brought with us. We practiced drinking tea with our pinkie finger extended.

We have been able to attend several of my grandson’s wrestling matches, which can be all-day events. I am glad we have the time to do this – we missed too many when we spent the month of February in Florida. It is so fun to watch him enjoy and compete at the same sport his dad excelled at.

He is a beast on the wrestling mat but has a heart of gold and still gives hugs to grandma.

Travel

The weather has been sketchy at home and Scottsdale promised to be sunny and in the 80’s last week. We are retired, so why not make a quick trip down there to enjoy the sunshine? On a last-minute whim we packed up and made the short 2 1/2-hour flight. So glad we did. We have been hiking, riding bikes, enjoying the sunshine and pool all week. I spent a few hours in a bookstore, just nosing around the stacks without an agenda. This is a pretty cheap trip for us because we stayed at my son’s condo, since it was available for the week, and we used our free fly miles to travel back and forth. Our biggest expense was a car rental, which we got for a surprising $18.00/day.

This hike nearly killed us, but it was worth the view.

“Once she stopped rushing through life, she was amazed how much more life she had time for.”

Filling the Jars

So, there you have it. Life has been too chock full of fun stuff to write a real blog post this week. I had to settle for this quick recap of the last few weeks in the life of a retiree. I hope that you are able to NOT manage some of your time this week as well. It opens doors for the fun stuff.

Isn’t Retirement Already a Vacation?

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

Do you really need to take a vacation when you are retired, since every day is like a vacation?  Why yes, yes we do.  Retirement has many similarities to a vacation, such as sleeping in if we want and the freedom to choose how to spend your time.  We choose what we want to do and what we need to do.  And there in lies the rub; when we are home, even in retirement, there are things we need to do.  When we are home, whether we are retired or not, we still need to clean the house, wash the cloths, shop for groceries, plan and prepare meals, mow the lawn, pay the bills and meet our responsibilities to others.  A vacation frees us from those responsibilities for a little while.   

According to AllinaHealth and Selecthealth, taking a vacation has several benefits:

  • Improves mental health
  • Provides a greater sense of well being 
  • Boosts happiness (After all, isn’t planning and thinking about it half the fun?)
  • Decreases your risk for heart disease (We have the added benefit that we walk A LOT when we travel.) 
  • Increases productivity & creativity (While this may be referring to paid work, it can certainly be applied to retirees as well.)
  • Strengthens relationships (My husband and are just lighter together when we travel.  Not physically, but emotionally.  And when you travel with or visit others, you build shared memories.)

My husband and I just got back from a micro vacation last week.  We have jokingly categorized our vacations into mini, micro and macro.  Mini vacations are quick, sometimes spur of the moment trips that are close to home and we can drive to.  They last between 2-5 days.  Micro vacations are more planned trips that last 1-2 weeks and are usually in the continental United States.  Then there are the macro vacations that take up to two weeks or more.  These are often outside of the continental U.S.  Our goal is to take at least one macro trip, two micro trips and numerous mini trips per year. 

Then to New Orleans and beignets after our morning walk.
Visitng my oldest son last week in Omaha.

While retirees no longer need to escape the time commitments and stress that exists with work, we still need the benefits that vacations provide.  I would have to add a few more items to the list of benefits that I gain whenever I travel.  Whether it is a mini, micro or macro vacation I always come home with: 

  • A new appreciation for home.  The old sayings, “it is good to leave home and it is good to come back” is so true.  I love to travel, but there is always a peace about coming back to the sanctuary of our home.
  • A new appreciation for our friends and family that live near us.  It is good to step away, as it refreshes relationships and it makes us appreciate them more when we meet up again.
  • It sparks my creative juices.  Seeing new sights and experiencing different cultures broadens my thinking and makes me look at life from different angles.
  • Shakes up our routine.   I am a big believer in having a loose routine or structure to our retirement days.  We need that.   But we can also get complacent with our routines, or dare I say, even get in a rut.  Vacations shake us up and awaken our senses again.
  • I come back with new recipes I want to try.  Our recent trip to New Orleans has put us on a quest to make a really good gumbo. 

While traveling can be exhausting, it also refreshes and expands my outlook on life.  It makes me eager to come home and try out new ideas.  So yes, yes we still need vacations when we are retired.  However, we really don’t need staycations anymore because, well… we ARE retired.