I don’t think I’ve ever confessed before that the reason we bought an RV was because we (almost) never get a good night’s sleep in a hotel/motel/inn. And the question comes to mind, how much are you willing to spend for a good night’s sleep?
Today we are hanging out in Galveston, and going to a school-age robotics show and I won’t have photos till after this posts, so, let’s take a mental side trip. Where we put our values. Like, how important is a good night’s sleep!
We always hoped to do some traveling when we retired. The idea of fulltiming was never in our brain, but travel was always up there, locked away, waiting to burst out. The reason we went out looking at vans in the first place and ended up in a motorcoach had a lot to do with the fact that we both have problems sleeping. Peggy doesn’t get much sleep period and I have always been able to FALL asleep easily but staying asleep long enough to get a decent night’s rest has been quite a different topic. 
When we went out looking for a van to take on photo trips we started out looking at vans with a raised roof. Our first idea was about getting up early, birding and then getting a place to take a nap in the afternoon because we didn’t sleep well at night. From there we looked at larger and larger ideas until we settled on our Journey.
And ultimately to the Ambassador we currently call ‘home’ and Serendipity.
And the question comes to mind, ‘how much do we value things? In our case the more we thought about retirement the more we realized that the only way we would get the retirement we wanted was to find a way to stay comfortable as we traveled; and that for us that meant a good night’s sleep.
Pretty much everything else about our retirement ‘plan’ came about as a result of our need for good night’s sleep! The idea that we could afford to do this had a lot to do with our final writing of checks and making purchases — but that reality came after we started looking around and after we had committed to retirement. That’s not the best way to go about it; but Peg & I are first in line to say that we aren’t a pattern to follow. We make our share of mistakes; we bumble along looking as if we might know what we are doing but the reality is that sometimes we’re just lucky.
But that still brings me back to the point of the day: where do we place our values? Sometimes, as in our case, what might seem to be a minor concern to some people, can be a major concern to others. All the years we took vacations and roadtrips we rarely got a great night’s sleep — and that memory was strong enough that when it came time to fashion a retirement out of nothing that the ‘small’ concern about sleep grew to it’s proper importance in our life.
I had spent about 6 years driving truck, off and on again during my career — kind of when I got too crazy about dealing with customers — trucking was an escape and time to clear my brain. But one thing I realized early on about trucking was that sleeping in the same bed every night enabled me to travel without fatigue and irritability. We were both aware of the ‘connection’ and when it came to retiring it seemed the perfect way to meet all our objectives in one fell swoop.
The fact that we had to sell our house and downsize from 6500 sq ft to 230 sq ft seemed an inconsequential price to pay to get what we wanted. And going on three years later it still was the best decision we’ve made in a long while. So, as I sit here in one of those few hotel rooms where we have gotten a decent night’s sleep, we are glad we don’t have to sleep in hotel rooms, and we’ll be ready and rarin’ to head back home Sunday to our own ‘home.’
Thanks for stopping by and I’ll talk with you tomorrow.
These cauliflower buffalo bites do just that! Dressed in the same buffalo sauce we love, these snacks are vegetarian (easily made vegan) and provide a way for us to greatly increase our veggie intake on a day that’s usually more focused on other things. This is a great way to still enjoy and make the most of your day, so whip up a batch (or 12) of these and have fun rooting for your team!
The truth of the matter is we TRY to live our family meet-ups without schedules but this time we haven’t been having much success. First their was the train, then the boat cruise schedule in San Antonio, today it was meeting up with the group for the Border Patrol tour, then after transport the actual tour, then coordinating the dolphin excursion on Padre Island and we had a busy day.
It was a nice day, but we’re all too tired to think.
We stopped at the Alamo for a start.
From the Far Side of '70 
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