The Gym, The Beach and Some Octane (Thursday, September 17th, 2015)

We headed back to the gym this morning for a cycling class. Steve loves cycling, and I really don’t, so it was interesting! I made it through class, and never crashed once so that’s saying something, even though it was just a stationary bike! I can’t say that I enjoyed it, but I did get a good workout, which I guess is why we go in the first place. Steve was a powerhouse and was totally in his element.

After class we decided to head back to the beach where we spent the day yesterday. We made some turkey rollups for lunch, loaded up the paddle boards (Thanks to Steve's bother and sister-in-law for the loan) and headed for our little beach. We spent the entire afternoon on our little beach, just relaxing, paddle boarding and enjoying retirement. 

We're trying out paddle boarding.  Steve mastered it pretty quickly

Trying a little paddle board yoga.  Boy did I have a big crash!  But we don't have to show everything!

We really enjoyed the paddle boarding.  I can definitely see us doing this again!

At about 5:00 we packed up and headed home for showers so that we could make it to our friends one-year anniversary for her restaurant, and a tasting party for their private label wine “Octane”.
The Octane Wine Garage opened last September when we were here in Havasu so we had fun getting to know the owner and some of the staff.  This was our first chance to visit it this year, so the event was really fun.

The Octane Wine Garage has a beautiful outdoor patio and brought in a great band for the event.

Something New in Havasu (Wednesday, September 16th, 2015)

We joined the gym!

And today was our first day of classes. Steve always enjoys the cycling classes, and I like the cardio body sculpt. Havasu Fitness is so laid back. There was a big line when we got there this morning, so although we had left ourselves 30 minutes to get all signed up before class, we still didn’t make it. But they let us go take our classes and then come back out and get our annual membership. After class we filled out the paper work, but Andra didn’t have her ID with her, and we had planned on using a credit card to pay, which they don’t take, but they got us all signed up and set our paperwork aside until we could bring an ID and checkbook back. 

A view of the main gym.  There are also rooms for cardio/weight classes, cycling, personal training and childcare.  There is also an area upstairs just for ladies.

We ran some errands after the gym and then came back to the house to have some leftover Thai food from last night for lunch. Then we headed out on an adventure. Steve told me to put on a swim suit, but that was all he said. It was to be a surprise!  And we headed across the London Bridge and out onto the island. When we got onto the island, he pulled off the road and headed down a “sort of” dirt road. It was definitely four-wheel drive. We ended up on a small island beach, which we had all to ourselves, and to my surprise, Steve had the whole back of the truck packed with beach stuff. He had chairs, an umbrella, towels and a cooler of beer and water. He backed the truck right down to the water, and that was our little piece of paradise for the day.

This is the life.  Just me, my beer and my chair!

Our little piece of paradise

Biking and Kayaking in Havasu (Tuesday, September 15th, 2015)

We’re back down in Lake Havasu City, and so far everything has been perfect. We have been taking it really easy, enjoying our coffee in the morning and the sunsets at night, and we have been concentrating on healthy food, and trying to think a little bit about fitness. We’ve enjoyed watching the quail play in the field in the morning, and the hummingbirds are here right now as they migrate south to Mexico for the winter. We’ve really enjoyed just living in the moment and finding pleasure in the small stuff.

We have been eating at the house every night since we got here, grilling different kinds of fish, and turning our grocery shopping and food prep into an adventure. It’s been too hot to get out and do anything during the day, so that has been our grocery shopping time each day. So far we’ve had a Greek inspired grilled halibut with baby greens salad, Cajun fish taco’s made with cod and a side of black beans, and teriyaki salmon with salad and bread. I’ve been making fresh avocado lime vinaigrette for the salad each night, which has been a nice healthy dressing. We’ve also been making red wine and cranberry juice sangria to go with our dinners.

September is our favorite month in Havasu. The temperatures are starting to cool down (The highs have been in the high nineties or low hundreds) and the lake water is still really warm. The past few days have been pretty hot, up around 110 or so and fairly high hummidity, and we have been kind of hiding out during the heat of the day. But today was cloud covered, breezy and quite a bit cooler, so we had a chance to get out and have some fun.

We loaded up the bikes this morning, and headed onto the island where it is nice and flat, to go on a bike ride. Lake Havasu City is built on the side of a hill, so unless you are an avid biker with good gears, it is not a very good place to begin. Anyone that knows us, knows that Steve is a great biker, and I am a terrible biker. If there is an obstacle in sight, I can hit it without trying, so an easy start was a must! 

There is a great walking/biking trail that goes around the north side of the island. Walkers go one direction on the trail and bikes go the other direction, so you can always see people coming at you. The trail is about 3.5 miles if you do a single loop, so quite easy with some nice views of the lake. 

Nice flat trail on the island, with nice views on part of it

We did just one loop on the trail this morning, and then threw the bikes back into the truck. Steve dropped me off by the London Bridge, and I took a quick jog through the channel and met him on the other end. There is a road and parking lot so he could pull the truck all the way down to where he was meeting me. We sat on a bench for a few minutes and watched the boats and swimmers. It was a really beautiful morning. 

We came back to the house so that I could get some work done, and eventually had some lunch, then we decided to go kayaking. It has been breezy all day, and the wind is coming from the south, so it travels directly up the lake. The water was kind of rough, and the wind was pretty strong, so we loaded the kayak at a little beach just south of the channel and paddled directly into the channel where the wind would be blocked a little bit. This was the first time we have ever kayaked, so it took a little getting used to. Thanks to Steve's brother for loaning them to us. We paddled about half way up the channel and then turned around and headed back into the wind. 

We're in the middle of the channel trying to get turned around

By the time we got back to Thompson Bay, near the beach where we loaded, the wind had picked up and the waves were coming over the front of the kayak. We paddled quite a ways past our beach, and then turned and let the waves carry us in.  The Kayaking was fun, but maybe a little slow for us.

We had dinner at the only Thai restaurant in Havasu, which we really enjoy. The place is really big inside, and never very crowded, but the food is good as is the service. We split a bowl of Tom-Ka-Gai, which is lemongrass and coconut milk soup with chicken, and a Paneng Curry, which is a tasty curry stew served over rice. Both were excellent!

Care Package and Cabin (Monday, September 7th, 2015)

Our youngest daughter is now realizing that eating gluten free and cooking all of her meals from scratch is time consuming while going to school, so we got a call this week asking for a little help. So today we headed up to Fort Collins to bring a few needed items to her.  

On our way up, we got lucky enough to see these beautiful hot air balloons just coming down from their morning run.  Colorado has the perfect climate for hot air balloons since the mornings are so cool.

Our daughter was glad to see us when we got to her apartment.  We loaded her freezer with some frozen food we brought up to her, delivered some chairs for her back balcony, and tried to set up the wii, so that they can watch some movies.  During setup, we realized that we were missing an important cable, so we ordered the cable, and decided that setup would have to wait until her new cable came in.  

The three of us jumped in the car, and headed to the family cabin, where Steve's parents were waiting for us.  By the time we got there, it was lunch time, so I pulled out some gluten free green chili that I had made and heated it up.  Steve's brother and his wife joined us for lunch as well.  Then we took a nice walk down to one of our favorite lakes.

Gorgeous View of Lake Nakomis, Red Feather Lakes, CO

We had a really nice time with everyone before it was time to get our daughter back to school.  We got an update from her about a week later that her cable came in and she got the Wii set up all by herself. What a pro!

Retirement Check-in (Monday, September 7th, 2015)

We are starting to get into the groove of retirement, and starting to figure out what we do and don't like about it so far. So we wanted to share our thoughts one month into retirement. The time has flown by.

Overall, we love retirement!

We love the flexibility that retirement offers. We can travel so much more inexpensively when we can be flexible. We go when the flights/cars/hotels are cheap not when we have specific vacation plans during a specific period of time. We are amazed at the difference in costs!


We miss our friends and family when we are gone, and are always excited to see them. We realize that when we are in town, we need to take time for all of them. There is always a lot to catch up on...family and friends come first! We had a chance to spend quality time with four of our different couple friends when we got home. It was fantastic to see them!

We're figuring out that it's hard to get in our workouts when we are on the road. This is something that we are going to have to get better at. It doesn't necessarily mean going to the gym everyday, but getting in a combination of weights, cardio, balance, flexibility, etc. in some way is a must.

Eating healthy continues to be a struggle when we are anywhere other than home. We really need to figure out how to get more fresh fruits and veggies no matter where we are. This might go hand in hand with staying in places longer. When we are constantly on the move, we don't spend the time to look for good produce. When we are in one place for awhile, we find our favorite produce and meat markets, which takes some of the challenge out of it. We usually take a piece of fresh fruit with us when we leave the hotel for the day, so that makes a good snack. Healthy preparation is the other key. At home we have the grill and smoker and can control the ingredients that go into our food. On the road, we are the at mercy of the restaurants. Now that we are settled back in for awhile, we will be concentrating on this aspect of retirement.

Taking time to enjoy a cup or two or three....of coffee in the morning has become very important to us. We prefer to do this outside, enjoying the sights and sounds of nature, but the weather doesn't always allow for that. We have a really nice covered deck at home that allows us to extend our good weather days a little bit, but we realize that winter is definitely on the way, so sweat pants and sweat shirts are becoming the norm if we want to sit outside first thing in the morning.


We talk to our kids a lot, no matter where we are, which is really important to us and hopefully to them. Steve says that talking with the kids brings him an element of calmness about life and the world. We know they are both extremely busy so we really appreciate them taking the time for us.

When we got home this time, our son-in-law was in town, so we got to spend some time with him and our daughter. They were very busy seeing everyone while he was home, but we did get one wonderful dinner with them.

We also headed up to spend a day with our youngest daughter. She put her busy life on hold for an afternoon so we could pick her up and take her to Steve's parent's cabin for a day. We had her all to ourselves! What a treat!


We've discovered that we enjoy places more if we have time to stay and get to know them. We like to have time to talk with locals and hear about what's happening in their lives and community. We are enjoying this much more than the attractions and sights. Jumping around from place to place get's tiring, and we feel like we miss a lot.


Andra still works part-time so we are working on making that run more smoothly. The partners in the firm she works for have been wonderful in trying to find good solutions that work for everyone. Just like everything else, this will take some time to work through.


Steve doesn't seems to really miss the "work" at this point, but he does miss the people and the friendships that came with working. He hopes those relationships will continue.

As we've heard others say before us, we are amazed at how little spare time we have. There are quite a few things that we want to incorporate into our lives that we still haven't found time for. Like many other things in our retirement we are continuing to work on this.

Labor Day in Denver, Colorado means Taste of Colorado (Sunday, September 6th, 2015)

In Denver, Colorado, Labor Day is synonymous with the Taste of Colorado.  The Taste of Colorado is a huge street fair, held in Civic Center Park in the heart of downtown Denver.  Parking is available all over the downtown area and usually runs about $10 per car, but entrance to the event is free.  You can buy tickets for food and rides, 15 tickets are $10 if you want, but the beauty of this event is that you can stay busy for a whole day without spending a cent if that is what you desire!  

The weather was perfect for the event.  High was in the mid-80's, very little humidity and a slight breeze.  Every few minutes clouds would come through to give a little relief from the direct sun.  The park has many very mature trees which also provided lots of shade.

There are five different stages at the event, with concerts going on all the time.  All of the concerts for the three day event are free, and it all takes place in beautiful down town Denver!

The Capital is the backdrop for this great event!

We saw the Canyon Creek Band at the country stage, and they were really good!

One booth was handing out free samples of the newest Mountain Dew product "Dew Shine", and had their hot rods on sight for the event

The Taste of Colorado with Capital Building in the background

They had some really fun artists on the main stage!

The Taste of Colorado is always a huge hit in Denver

The Main Stage featuring Christian Rock Artist Chris August

Christian Rock artist Chris August's Free Concert

View toward the City and County Building during the Chris August concert

There are always lots of fun activities.  Not sure of the cost

We really had a nice day walking around and catching all the sights and music.  We sometime forget what a wonderful place Colorado is and today was definitely one of those wonderful days!

Cape Cod and Boston (Monday, August 31st, 2015)

The end of August is a great time to come to Cape Cod. Traffic is light, hotel rooms are plentiful and best of all, the weather is still warm and sunny most of the time.

We stayed last night at the Super 8 Hotel in Hyannis, which is towards the beginning of the cape. The room was a little dated, but very nice and spacious and clean, and best of all, it had a great showerhead. I never realized that I am a showerhead coinsurer, but I guess I am.

Our room was $74, all included with the AARP discount. They also offered a complimentary breakfast in the front office, which was simple, but very nice to have. The owner was working the front desk. He was from India and was very interesting to talk to. He was also very helpful about giving us ideas of what to do and see. I’m sure that their rates are higher than this during high season, but they were definitely affordable compared to a lot of the other options.

We had breakfast in our hotel lobby, then packed up the car and headed further down the cape. Our first stop was Fort Hill in Eastham, where the main attraction is the former house (built in 1868) of Captain Edward Penniman, a very successful whaler on Cape Cod. The entry arch to the property is lower jawbone of a 63 foot finback whale that washed ashore in a nearby town in 1966.  It is the third jawbone that has served at the entry arch to the property.  In the barn there are also several old wagons that were really interesting to see. 

Steve under the jawbone arch

Wagons in the barn

There are also some nice trails in this area, but we didn’t have time to walk them since it was about time to check in for our flights on Southwest. Check in is 24 hours prior to the flight and we did not have good cell reception, so we headed back closer to town. We pulled into a small parking lot to see if our cell service was better, and to our surprise, it was the lot for the Eastham Information Center, and they had great wifi, so we used their wifi to get checked in for tomorrow’s flight. We also went in to the information center to get some maps and information. 

Our next stop up the cape was a spot called Marconi Station Site. It is an area up above the beach that offers a view from several points. The only point that really had a good view was the center point, where you could overlook the coastline in both directions. We stood there for quite some time and watched seals playing in the surf below us. 

The point to the right had a great deck, but not a very good view

The center point had the best view, but no board walk, so the biting flies were fierce

Seals playing the surf below us.  So much fun to watch

But unfortunately, there were black flies biting our ankles, so we moved on. There is also a boardwalk through the marsh that would have been interesting, but the biting flies were bad enough that we chose to skip the boardwalk and continue on. 

At the intersection where Route 6 and Route 6A come together, we came to the town of Truro. There are a couple of things worth seeing here. On your left at the “Y” in the road is a place called the Atlantic Spice Company. It is a fabulous store full of spices and teas, as well as lots of fun cooking gadgets. All of the spices and teas are at wholesale prices, and there is a great selection to choose from. We spent quite a bit of time in this charming big store, and picked out some fun teas to take back for the girls. We also picked up their catalog, since they will ship their items to you, and shipping is free for an order of $50 or more. 

In addition to the store up front, the Atlantic Spice Company has a huge shipping and receiving area

On the right side at the “Y” is a winery called Truro Vineyards. It was a very pretty little place, with tables and umbrellas out front, and a gift shop and wine tasting inside. There are very nice restrooms on the far side, outside of the gift shop. They also had a food truck on sight, and in a small outside bar they had rum tastings for the rum that they also produce onsite. You can get to this vineyard from Route 6 or 6A, as it is located right in the “Y” of the two roads.

Look at these beautiful vineyards!

A Chinese Mulberry Tree planted in 1870

The rum tasting bar

The town of Truro is the point on the cape where it finally started to narrow, and looked much more like what we expected the cape to look like. It finally became less wooded, with more dunes covered in grass and lower vegetation. We enjoyed seeing this part of the cape the most. We chose to take Route 6A since it is the more scenic route, and it took us into a small town of Wellfleet. This is more of a town for the locals than the tourists, and is a big fishing town. We walked out on the pier, which had a lot of clam boats mooring. 

A large lobster boat mooring in the small town of Wellfleet

On the pier in Wellfleet.  There are so many working boats around us

Lots of clam boats

Right by the pier, there was a restaurant and seafood market. The restaurant had some really yummy looking items at fair prices, and the seafood market was small, but had a wonderful selection of beautiful seafood.

As we continued down 6A, we finally found Provincetown, the very touristy town at the end of the cape. Provincetown is a very artsy community with very narrow roads. Since we were there in late August, there weren’t many tourists left and the town was rather quiet. But even during quiet times, the streets are full of bikes and pedestrians and a few cars. 

Looking down the beach, back toward Truro and Hyannis

Looking up the beach toward the end of the cape

It’s kind of chaotic if you are from a slower paced community, and that is what makes it fun. We found a nice deli for lunch on Trip Advisor, called Relish. They had a nice selection of healthy sandwiches and salads to choose from. 

Steve and I decided to split a medium Tabouli salad and a broiled salmon filet. It was a great choice, although we thought the portion was small for the price. We also bought one of their big cookies to split and a giant water, and enjoyed it all on a nice park bench since there is no seating at Relish. Total for the salad, salmon, cookie and water was $20.

Very good salad and salmon, but the portion certain should have been bigger

After lunch we made our way back through Provincetown (Relish is on the far side) to where our car was parked. We had found a free parking place along Commercial Street, which was about ½ mile before the main downtown district. It was a very pretty walk, so we didn’t mind it at all. Beyond that point, all parking appears to be a flat rate of $15-$20 per day to park.

Once we left Provincetown, we headed for Boston. Our last night’s stay would be at the Holiday Inn Express, Saugus, near the airport. Traffic flowed very nicely, so we got off the cape in good time. As we were leaving the cape, we started thinking about the number of towns and people that are on the cape at any one time, and how hard it would be to evacuate in the event of a hurricane. There is only one highway going in and out, so it would take days.  

We noticed that we would be going right past Plymouth, so we decided that would be a good place for a rest stop. We took a few pictures of Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower II.  

Here it is!

The building housing Plymouth Rock. You can see the rock on the sand in the center of the structure.

The Mayflower II, a replica of the Mayflower that you can tour.  We were amazed at how small it was.  

The car was running low on fuel when we left Plymouth, but the fuel gauge said we had enough to get to our hotel with 40 miles leftover so Steve decided to push it to try to stay ahead of rush-hour traffic. Big mistake…to make a long story short things got really dicey in that traffic hit just as we were going through downtown Boston and the car went from saying we had 60 miles of fuel left to get it now! We made it but it was ugly. Lesson learned was keep it on the full half of the tank!

Dinner was in Saugus, Massachusetts at a restaurant right near our hotel. It was called Sake Japanese Restaurant, and was by far our best restaurant meal of the entire trip especially for the price. We found it on Trip Advisor, and it was rated 6 out of 110 restaurants in Saugus. 

We ordered two of the Sake Specials at $35 per person, which were large meals, in hopes that we would have enough for leftovers on the way home. The meals also included a wonderful miso soup and a large salad which we forgot to take pictures of. We’ll let the pictures speak for themselves on our entrees.

And yes, there was enough for leftovers, so we’ll be the envy of the Kansas City Airport at lunchtime.  They only packed us chopsticks, no silverware, so we did get a few strange stares as we enjoyed it the next day.

The #1 rated restaurant in Saugus was a donut shop, which we found funny because the two things that we saw the most of on this trip were Dunkin Donuts and miniature/adventure golf. They are everywhere! We think there are more donuts and mini golf holes per capita than there are brewpubs in Colorado.