Interstate Adventures

Work has been an uninvited guest to our rental house in North Conway, New Hampshire. It surprised us in Saint Augustine, Florida. It barged its way into our family time. It rode with us on a chairlift at Whistler, BC. Work has jolted us awake in the middle of countless nights. 

Work has been stressful, fun, and surprising for both of us. I have been a marketing specialist, operations analyst, coach, entrepreneur, teacher, and administrator. I’ve been on a windy path. Bruce, on the other hand, has a career that is as niche and specific as a doctor or a lawyer. Whatever the state of healthcare is in this country, someone has lost sleep and family time over making it better. He creates original technology to support healthcare administration. He often describes his solutions as crystal palaces.

We have made a career and travel work but there are essential things that need to be in place in order for this to be sustainable and to support Bruce’s drive to keep working as we enter a new phase of life together. 

1. Shoulder season is the best season for travel. We had access to waterfront campsites and long stretches of empty beaches while in Prince Edward Island last September. 
2. Driving from one location to the next needs to happen Friday afternoon, Saturday, or Sunday. By Sunday evening we need to be in one location for the next week or two.
3. No single points of failure. We have multiple methods of accessing the internet no matter where we are. On a 100-plus-degree day we were sweating at a municipal park with Bruce in a chair under the shade of a tree for connectivity so he could keep building his palace. 

This week we set up our campsite at a local beach campground. As we unfolded the new cabana for shade, arranged a table and a chair, and stretched out the panel for satellite internet, I was aware that we did not look quite like the other campsites. We are not retired but reinventing ourselves somewhere in between.