{"id":32156,"date":"2018-09-06T12:24:31","date_gmt":"2018-09-06T12:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=32156"},"modified":"2018-09-06T12:24:31","modified_gmt":"2018-09-06T12:24:31","slug":"happy-trails-part-122-no-organized-activities-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=32156","title":{"rendered":"Happy Trails, Part 122: No ‘organized activities,’ please"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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You know already that my wife and I have returned to our “roots,” if you want to call it that.<\/p>\n

We started our life together 47 years ago in a two-bedroom apartment in southeast Portland, Ore. We have returned to an apartment lifestyle in Fairview, Texas. We sold our house in Amarillo and decided — after relatively little discussion — to hang on to our dough and use it to travel; the idea of assuming a mortgage at our age didn’t appeal to us.<\/p>\n

And that brings me to the point of this blog post.<\/p>\n

While we were shopping for an apartment to call “home,” we entertained the idea of living in one of those “active adult communities,” you know, the places that restrict residence to those who are at least 55 years of age.<\/p>\n

We visited some complexes in the Dallas\/Fort Worth area. We chatted with enthusiastic young<\/em> marketing professionals who sought to impress us with all the “benefits” of living in such a community.<\/p>\n

Perhaps you know what they are: quiet surroundings, well-kept property, easy access to amenities.<\/p>\n

Then came this one: group activities<\/em>. You know, tours, shopping sprees, various and sundry outings with our peers.<\/p>\n

My wife and I would look at each other fairly routinely when we heard about all of that; we would nod, thank the marketing whiz for his or her time and be on our way.<\/p>\n

It then dawned on both of us at about the same time: We might be old, but we don’t want to be treated<\/em> like two old people. I am about to turn 69 years of age; my wife is, shall we say, a little younger than I am. We remain in good health. We want to enjoy our recreational vehicle. We intend to make ample use of it now that we have all this time time on our hands.<\/p>\n

I don’t feel<\/em> like a fuddy-duddy. Neither does my wife.<\/p>\n

There might come a day when we need<\/em> to relocate once more to one of those “communities” that feature group activities and, all that blah, blah, blah.\u00a0<\/em>We both are acutely aware that time isn’t necessarily our ally.<\/p>\n

Just not yet.<\/p>\n\n

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You know already that my wife and I have returned to our “roots,” if you want to call it that. We started our life together 47 years ago in a two-bedroom apartment in southeast Portland, Ore. We have returned to an apartment lifestyle in Fairview, Texas. We sold our house in Amarillo and decided — … Continue reading Happy Trails, Part 122: No ‘organized activities,’ please<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3007,3920,4058],"class_list":["post-32156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-metroplex","tag-retirement","tag-rv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32157,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32156\/revisions\/32157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}