As the case with the vast majority of the things I write, this did not start out here. It started a few miles further back…but this is the one that we are going with…

The first leg of the tour started with a plan to go see my mother. It had been a couple of years since I had visited, so it made sense. Then the decisions of transportation, and lodging needed to be….well….decided.

And this is where it all started to get fuzzy…..

I decided to camp across the US in truck stops. Got more than a few sideways looks from friends and family….though all of my kids got it, as did all of the kids of my friends.

This was my first cross-country trip that I was going to take leisurely. I wanted to pay attention to the things around me. The deer warning signs in New Mexico where someone had drawn a fart cloud around the deers butt. The ways that the cliffs were dug out in the New Mexico desert. The first time I smelled mown grass in Oklahoma. Then trees. Tons, and tons of trees. The explosion of green was something.

The time spent in Michigan was heart-warming, aggravating, infuriating, saddening, and needed. In short, it was everything that it was supposed to be. Alcohol was imbibed, pakalolo was smoked, cigars were lit, lies were told, laughter filled the air.

And then it was time to go.

All of the people I inconvenienced with my couch surfing were apologized to.

This retirement thing has been harder than I thought it would have been. The lack of purpose….the not needing to get up for anything in particular…I now know why they say that that first year of retirement is where especially men have the most trouble.

But we are going to work through all of this over the rest of year, and the upcoming portions of the tour.

Any maybe next time I should address why we, meaning me….I mean, who else is there?…call this The Chasing My Dragons Tour……