Our retirement journey has been reduced, narrowed, diminished a bit. We aren’t calling a halt to our recreational vehicle travel. We’ve just been placed on a dramatically shortened leash.

Damn you, coronavirus pandemic!

We had intended to spend a good bit of our summer months tooling around several states with our fifth wheel hooked up to our pickup.

Then the pandemic arrived in all its viciousness. It forced state parks to shut down. It has shuttered businesses that cater to folks like my wife and me.

I want to stipulate that we love the home we purchased in Collin County, Texas. We enjoy spending time working in the yard, arranging storage space to make it more usable for two retired folks.

We also enjoy greatly our RV and getting out of Dodge for a spell.

Except that this summer our travel will be restricted. Neither of us wants to push our luck visiting places that might become COVID-19 “hot spots” while we’re in the area.

Our plans now as summer approaches include a number of Texas state park visits. We’ll be spending some time shortly in Atlanta, Texas, at the state park in the northeast corner of Texas. Our new home puts us in close proximity to a number of state parks.

We had sought to get into a few of them closer to the house. We couldn’t get in; it turns out a lot of other Texans have the same idea and those parks were booked to the max.

We found some space at Atlanta State Park, so off we will go.

Retirement remains a whole lot of fun. We are hoping for an end to the health crisis that has limited our time with our precious granddaughter.

It also keeps us on a short leash. The open road awaits. It’s just not as lengthy as we prefer it to be.