Travel Plans Kickstarting My Retirement

I am new at being retired. There is no one way to do it, and rightness and wrongness is a matter of opinion. But this is how I am doing it so far. How different it is to be able to make travel plans outside of the school year! Before, it wouldn't be possible to go to a wedding on the mainland during the school year, but now that I am retired, it is in the realm of possibilities. 

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So I thought I would go to my cousin's daughter's wedding in September, but I wanted to attach it to something else so that the Hawaiian miles I had saved up would have even more value. The general theme of my retirement is - write more - so I looked for opportunities to develop my writing skills and ideas. I found a good class in Vancouver, BC, Canada the weekend after the wedding. And since I have heard great things about that city,  I decided yes, I'll do that. Then there was the Story Expo in LA, the first weekend of September. I agonized over that one because it would give me 2 weeks in between that and the wedding. Heck, I can fill 2 weeks. So without knowing what I would do for those 2 weeks, I booked the conference and the flight. 

I called my sister and a friend to tell them I had this time frame and ask if I could visit. A friend, Nuria, said she would be in Mexico on vacation at the time, and then she invited me to join her! Didn't take much for me to say yes. So this is my loose itinerary: LA (Story Expo), Mexico (Taxco), Marysville (sister), LA (wedding), Vancouver (class), Seattle (departure). 

I don't know if this is HOW to retire, but this is how I'm kick starting it. And just maybe it will be predictive of my retirement story and also of my aim to do more with my writing. Hope you will follow my journey in this blog.