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| Photo by Prateek Bahadur |
I've been slow in amping up my travelling now that I'm retired. Mr. R-T and I have a few trips planned (maybe imagined is closer to reality), but since he is still working, he's not as enthusiastic as I am. However, this past weekend we found ourselves in Chicago. We have children (a son and daughter-in-law) living there, and we hadn't yet seen their place and how they were faring as a married couple (if either of you are reading this -- we approve. Not that you asked our opinion.) It was just a long weekend -- leave Friday morning, return Sunday night. Probably not the ideal travel plans; if we were both retired, it would make more sense, both financially and airport-chaos-wise, to travel on Thursday and Tuesday, but we are working up to that.
We got "senior citizen" fares from United, but as near as we can tell, they cost the same as regular fares. We also got to use TSA-Pre for the first time. This is the special check-in line for pre-approved folks, where you don't have to take of your shoes, take out your laptop, etc. In our case (not sure this is always true), we didn't have to go through the milliwave detector either. It was very fast. We have been using CLEAR, which is one of the private companies that enable you to bypass long lines (they use fingerprint detection to identify you), but you still have to take off shoes, etc., so we found Pre to be faster (and it didn't cost as much as CLEAR, which we probably won't renew). CLEAR only works in a few cities, of which San Francisco is one. Of course, which is the least hassle can change as more and more people sign up for either service.
We were in Chicago during the Taste of Chicago, but the newlyweds just wanted to hang out around the house, so we missed that. I figure they will be there for a while, so maybe next year, I'll get to go. We did go out for a very nice dinner Saturday night, at Spiaggia, one of Chicago's Michelin 1-star restaurants (our children are definitely foodies). Other than that, we learned a lot about their local neighborhood and enjoyed their company.
The best part about travelling while retired is after I get home. No need to rush around trying to squeeze in three days of errands and chores in the cracks before and after work. Today I did laundry, grocery shopping, garden work, and other things (even writing for this blog) at my leisure. Always before I dreaded travelling because I knew that when I returned, I was going to have 3-4 days of craziness to get caught up. When you don't have tons of responsibilities, it can be done in one day. Who knew?
While I love visiting family, my desire to travel is mostly about seeing places as much as people. I need to spend a week or more in Chicago to see the sites on my list, and that will have to be done without my museum-hating son. And there are so many other places I want to spend time in. It's time to leave Mr. R-T in the lurch. A similarly retired friend and I are talking about going to Santa Fe, and there are several places along the West Coast I want to take short trips to. Of course, there are also longer trips to Europe, New Zealand and South America on the bucket list (we had a conversation yesterday about going on safari in Africa, so I think that's going on the list too). Now I just need to make time for these, and figure out how best to budget for them.
