Road Trip
A good friend of my husband generously invited us to share his condo in Saint George, Utah for a week in May. Now that I’m retired and not tied to a work or vacation schedule we decided to do something that we haven’t done in years, a “Road Trip”. In addition to planning for hiking and golf during our week in the Canyon Lands we decided to take four days to drive down and three to come home.
My husband did an amazing job of finding golf courses and hotels that only required us to drive four to seven hours each day. He found great places to sleep and either booked a tee time for us to golf together or found a few walks and hikes along the way. We slept in Pendleton, Oregon, Boise, Idaho, and Orem, Utah on the way south. Then we slept in Twin Falls, Idaho, and Kennewick, Washington on our way north.
We haven’t traveled like this very often in the past but we both found it really enjoyable. Every day was a new adventure. We met wonderful people, the hotels we stayed at were clean and were fully implementing COVID protocols, and we found some out of the way restaurants that were interesting with delicious food.
What struck me was how nice it was to have time to talk for hours as the beautiful scenery flew by. The speed limit in Utah is 80 miles an hour so the landscape went by really fast! We balanced our trip with some easier, less expensive courses that were good for me and the natural beauty of the desert southwest.
With the red rock hills, snow-capped mountains, frothy waterfalls, green trees, sagebrush all under clear blue skies and a bright yellow sun, it was hard to keep our eyes on the road. Each day I was able to be present in the moment and truly appreciate that I was in these places instead of working in a home office.
Once we joined our friends we were treated to a beautiful two-bedroom condo with a lovely pool. We golfed together at four different courses and on the other days, we went on some amazing hikes. Sometimes we got a big lunch after our round and then snacked and told stories in the evening. Other nights we went to some interesting places for dinner and on three nights we cooked for ourselves and ate in. There were barbecues on our deck so we grilled some meat, added a salad and some sides, and enjoyed our meal together.
Our two-week Road Trip just flew by to the point where we weren’t really ready to come home. Some of the highlights were: We were able to see parts of the country we’ve never seen before. We didn’t travel the same road twice. We met other retired folks from all over the country. We renewed old friendships. We grew closer together as a couple. My golf game is slowly improving and I walked more steps in two weeks than I did during months of the pandemic.
We can’t wait for our next Road Trip.
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