I was reminded by a friend that I have not been sharing my story for a while.
So, a little update on what my plans are. Always entertaining when I try to make plans.
For those that have not been keeping track, I retired in May of 2018, got rid of much of what I had, including my apartment, storing what little I didn’t get rid of. In July I flew one of my two bikes to Germany, then rode for over 20,000 miles all over Europe, including Scandinavia and some of Eastern Europe. In October I ended this portion of my trip in Ireland, where my bike sits waiting for me.
Many people dream of a permanent life on the road. If you talk to anyone that has tried it, you realize that reality is often different from your dreams. Most people get tired of continuous travelling after a few months, unless they have specific goals or some kind of work to do on the road. I had assumed I would be no different. I expected that I would need to change my future plans by the end of the first summer. So I did.
Simply put, I paused for a bit. From the start I had assumed I would get tired of continuously traveling after a few months and would need to stop someplace for a while. I had also assumed that at some point in the future I would change my travels and create a home base of some kind, then head out for trips of a month or two from there, returning and regrouping and planning the next stage for a month or two. That was, to some extent, the future plan that Irene and I had before she got sick, I would travel for a bit, then she would meet me for a portion of the travelling then I would go home for a while. Repeat.
Here are my current plans, and we all know how well I follow plans. I will be here until February 11 when I will head to New Zealand for about a month. Then back to New Hampshire for a week, then on a week long SCUBA trip before returning to New Hampshire. My bike is still in Ireland. For Tourist Visa reasons I cannot really go back to Europe until May. I might go to Ireland then, or maybe wait until the fall. Maybe I will stay in New England for the summer, or maybe not. I really don’t know why I bother making plans anyway, I never follow them.
The plan for my future travels will likely be shorter adventures with more time spent in one place in between. But, again, plans and I don’t really get along.