When I was working full time, I occasionally would have a conversation with a retired person who would say something like, “I’m so busy now that I’m retired that I don’t know how I got things done when I was working.” I would sometimes respond with something like, “I have thought about retiring, but I’m not sure that I want to work that hard.” It was mostly joking, because I didn’t really understand the dynamics of being retired. I observed people who ware really enjoying life in their retirement and who were engaged in all kinds of fun and meaningful activities. But I had also observed people who seemed to do only about one thing a day. If there was a class or a meeting, it would be the only thing on their schedule. They’d linger while I had a lot of other things to do. They’d complain if they had two things to do in the same day, say a doctor’s appointment and a meeting at the church, while I had many things to do every day.

I have a different perspective now that I am retired. I have slowed down a bit from the busiest of my active working days, but I still have lots of things to do. The days go by quickly and there are lots of tasks that take me longer than I expected. I’m sure that part of my story is that I have a bit less energy than some other phases of my life. Some tasks simply take me longer than once was the case.

2021 has been a strange year for most of us, and I’m no exception. The pandemic has meant that I have had to do a lot of things in a different manner than I might have done at other phases of my life. I have had to learn new skills and take some precautions. We have been fortunate that we had the opportunity to take a big trip with our camper, something that we have been looking forward to in our retirement. Still, I am surprised at how quickly the time passes. Here it is, with only a week left in August and school will be starting the next week and we are on our first camping trip of the summer with our grandchildren. For a little while it looked like we might not get camper time with them scheduled this summer. Of course they and their parents have busy lives and we are starting a new job after having been gone for more than a month, so there are reasons why we are just getting in our camping trip. Still, I had hoped that being retired might afford more time for such adventures. We’ve had dreams of taking our grandchildren camping ever since we have been grandparents and I thought that being retired might mean taking them on some big adventures.

It happens that the year after our first grandchild was born we decided to replace our former camper. It was a slide-in truck camper that we had enjoyed a great deal, traveling all around the western states and Canadian provinces. But it was getting old and had some problems and we were looking for something just a little bit bigger. A truck camper is tight inside. If one person is cooking, the other has to be in the dinette, the bed or the bathroom. That’s all the space there is. Being brand new grandparents made us think of adventures in which we would be able to take our grandchildren. Also, I discovered that I was often pulling a trailer to haul my canoes. I reasoned that we could pull a camping trailer and that would free up the truck to haul boats. So we decided to buy a used camp trailer that is a “bunkhouse.” At one end of the camper there is a bed for a couple of adults. At the other end there are four bunks for children. Between there is a bathroom, a kitchen, a dining area and a couch. It is really very nice.

From the beginning of our ownership of this camper, we have had a lot of grand adventures. We’ve pulled it as much as 10,000 miles in a year. We’ve had it all across the United States. We’ve lived in it for more than a month at time. It has also been very useful as a guest bedroom on occasion. Earlier this month our niece and her husband and three children found the camper to be a comfortable vacation home for a few days. And we’ve had a lot of really fun times with our grandchildren. We are fortunate. But we had hoped for even more time. We keep saying, “next year . . .”

By squeezing our schedule and by choosing a destination close to home, we were able to arrange this adventure. It was fun to get three car seats into our truck and have the back seat filled with grandchildren yesterday. We didn’t have far to go, which was a good thing because our morning was filled with church and after church we took a few minutes to go to an open house. We are house hunting and have made the search for a new home a priority. Fortunately, church and the open house and our son’s home and the campground are all reasonably close to each other.

Although it is raining as I write this morning, it has been very dry around here and a campfire ban is in place. That means that the hot dogs were cooked on the stove in the camper and the s’mores were cooked over a gas flame instead of a campfire. Still, we had a grand adventure yesterday, with time for running and playing and exploring a new place. We had some fun snacks and played board and card games. We keep the camper stocked with toys and Susan is really good at matching toys and games to the children’s ages and interests.

I’m sure that it won’t be long before I say to someone who is not retired, “Wow, it is a good thing I’m retired! I’m so busy I don’t have time to work.” I know they won’t understand. That’s OK. There will be time for them to discover for themselves.