Saskia and Richard's RVing Adventures

Today, for the first time in 9 days, I actually dried my hair using my hair dryer, instead of leaving it to nature.  No, there has not been an electrical issue, nor has it been the next step in my letting it all hang out and loose and carefree (see previous post ) since hitting the road with our truck Benny and becoming full timers in our RV, aka the Jet. Actually my left elbow has been incapacitated. Our wonderful but strenuous six hour hike to the 12,000 ft high Blue Lake in the lee of Mount Sneffels ended badly for me, as I slipped on the steep gravelly return path a mere two hundred feet from the end of the trail.  Yes I was tired.  Yes I had a headache, and yes, despite the fantastic scenery, I had been thinking all kinds of negative thoughts – all symptoms of altitude sickness, I now understand.  No doubt these factors didn’t help when I fell on by backside and my elbow impacted into the mountainside.  There was little obvious damage, but I could not straighten my arm

Retirement, like any change in lifestyle, takes some adjustment.  Suddenly your time is no longer compartmentalized into work, weekend, housework, socializing, entertainment, me-time, partner time, family time. With an extra nine or ten hours a weekday to fill, you have to rearrange and re-prioritize those compartments to fill the work void, including possibly perusing some new hobbies or activities.  And of course, you have to get used to living 24/7 with your partner. For Richard and me, since moving from the UK to the USA, learning to RV and visiting family has pretty much occupied our time since we finished work last December.  It is only now, in our 8th month in the US that we are beginning to fall into a pattern that I think will pretty much shape our lives in the coming years.  There are peaks of activity, ie sightseeing, the occasional movie or meal out, and the troughs of normal everyday chores – food shopping, truck and trailer maintenance, finding things to do to fill th