Being Home. Getting Renewed..

We arrived from Mexico on April 3 and we leave again in two weeks for a six-state road trip. That means about three months of staying at home. What does an active traveler, even in her seventies, do?  Give in to boredom and gain pounds? 

with Bill at the fitness center

We are based in a resort lifestyle community.  Viewpoint has everything you need for an active 55+ lifestyle. I go to the fitness center every day. The pool and hot tub are always inviting. And Bill loves to invite me for a little pleasant hike around the park in the evening. There are special activities, too: movies every Tuesday, Texas Hold’em, Wednesdays, Dine-outs, Fridays and Saturdays, a birthday party here and wedding reception there. There are the very engaging activities of cooking our favorite dishes, tending to my plants, and shopping for the home. Plus the opportunity to have time with valued friends.

The surrounding cities of Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler, and Gilbert all have markets, festivals, theater, opera, movies, and other activities galore. We don’t rush to go to all that this destination has to offer because we know they will always be there. So I am still more relatively still than when I am traveling. This gives me enough time for blogging and social media with lots of rest time in between.

our humble home base in Viewpoint

cooking at home

Staying home allows me to get renewed for the hectic and exciting travel days ahead. In fact, if I don’t have this respite, I don’t think I will be able to bounce around for six weeks straight on our forthcoming road trip. The time between travels has no ups and downs. There is stability in your environment. You get to follow an established routine. It's a comfort zone. It's simply home.

There must be something restorative in sleeping in your own bed, watching your own TV, or eating food that you have cooked. It gives you the downtime to get refreshed. Your travel juices are focused on planning future trips. You have time to collect facts about remaining bucket list items, time to choose among competing alternatives, and time to find the best deals.

evening at the pool

The same downtime gives you space to wonder about your wanderings. You find the inspiration to write articles with deeper perspectives. You write about inner journeys, lessons learned, insights gained, transformations achieved besides the destinations reached and activities experienced. Just like today, I write here about travel pauses.

A Fitbit Charge 3 is my constant companion, resting nicely on my wrist. It constantly tells me how well I slept and how much I moved every day. During our three months in Mexico, I slept an average of six hours, walked 7-9,000 steps, went to the fitness center, and ate three meals heartily every day at three of the nine all-inclusive restaurants. It is no wonder I gained three pounds and a little “baby bump.”

I’ve been home for almost three months now (except for a brief two-week road trip in May). I sleep the same hours and visit the fitness center each day, too. However, since I do not have to walk from building to building to get to the restaurants and activities, my daily steps are just 4-6,000. But then I also do not eat a lot (I don’t want to cook more!) So, I have lost the pounds I gained in Mexico although a piece of the “baby bump” remains. In a sense, it is even healthier during this downtime!

at Ikea, shopping for the home

A well-thought, well-spent downtime between trips and adventures is heaven-sent. Being home will get you renewed. I am glad we have it six months a year, three in spring and three in fall. As I wrote about in a previous post, that's the best time to be in the desert anyway

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