Retirement Lifestyle Tip – Take a Break

Don’t work too hard at retirement

Let’s face it, even the best retirement lifestyle can get to be a routine. Maybe you have a weekly schedule of events and a daily pattern of activities. You get things done. You feel good about yourself. You are working your plan and planning your work. But maybe when you settle into your retirement lifestyle – even an outrageous one- you notice that after a while you don’t spring out of bed quick so eagerly in the morning. Maybe you start feeling a bit draggy after lunch  instead of the old excitement and adventure. Is this a problem?  Do you need to start all over and find a new retirement adventure? No, you can relax. The truth is much simpler – you just need to take a break.

My September Break

That is what I was feeling this month. The edge was off the excitement about my retirement adventure so Monday, my wife and I took a day trip to San Francisco. We are 100 miles away from the big city here in the Sierra Foothills. It is far enough that day trips seem like a hassle. We usually spend one or two nights when we visit which increases the expense considerably and so we don’t visit often. Monday we went just for the day – to see one museum and eat some oysters. It was a great success.

The hard part was putting it into my schedule

First is put pressure on my routine, I had to get posts lined up for the blogs. My schedule is organized to provide free days each week but without actual scheduled events, I don’t take them. It isn’t actually very hard to do this once you decide. The hard part was locking up that day in my calendar and doing it.

A Wonderful Day

The museum didn’t open until 11:00 so we didn’t need to start early and participate in the commuter traffic. We left the house at 8:00 for the drive to the ferry in Vallejo, 50 miles away. We learned early on that there is no reason to have a car in San Francisco and arriving by ferry is the perfect start to a wonderful visit.

The museum we were visiting (The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) is about one mile from the ferry building in the Embarcadero. It is a nice walk – and a level one- but my wife said take a cab so we picked up a cab at the Hyatt and were soon at SFMOMA. We enjoy art and particularly modern art which is why this was such a treat for us. If you don’t like art, there are plenty of other things to do in San Francisco for a day trip. Imagine yourself doing something you enjoy and forget the art. Do some shopping, take a hike or go fishing.  We spent several hours in the museum, We looked around the exhibit. We visited paintings we especially like in the permanent collection. We visited the museum shop and then we drank iced tea in the restaurant while we figured out what to do next.

Raw Bar Action

What we really wanted were oysters – raw and briny. My new Android phone came to the

rescue with a restaurant not two blocks from the museum and guided us there to my wife’s amazement. They were between lunch and dinner so there was no hot food service but they agreed to let us have a little ‘raw’ bar action so for two hours my wife and I were the only customers while we consumed three dozen oysters and a bottle of bubbly. By this time my wife was so happy that she even agreed to walk back to the Ferry Building. The sun was out. San Francisco was perfect and the ferry ride back to Vallejo provided the perfect way to wind down from the day and the bubbly and shape up for the drive back home.

Take your own break

So that was my break. I came back refreshed and invigorated ready to get back into my outrageous retirement lifestyle. My suggestion for you is to take a break too. You may not want to visit a museum or even a city. Find something you really enjoy and schedule your day trip. Then come back and share you experience and how it made you feel when you got back to your routine.  Happy wife- Happy Life.