Saskia and Richard's RVing Adventures

We have spent most of August in the lee of the Grand Mesa, in Colorado.  Our RV park was located in Cedaredge, which hails itself as the gateway to the Mesa, where the cedars thin out and the pine forest and the aspens begin.  At over 10,000 feet above sea level, the Grand Mesa is the highest plateau in the USA, a basalt outcrop that retains water in over 300 trout filled lakes. It is a fishing canoeing and kayaking haven for some, for others somewhere to run wild with ATVs in summer, snowmobiles in winter.  For Richard and I, it was a place to hike, admire the views, the wildflowers, and the wildlife, and cool off from the near 100 degree summer heat of the cities of Delta and Grand Junction located some 6000 feet in the valley below,  which we only visited when stocking up on food and other essentials (you know, things like wine, and beer, and more wine). Temperatures at The Shady Creek RV camp we were in, situated 4000 feet below the Mesa rim, were no...

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 thin...