Road in Retirement

Cupertino Aka Apple Town In our last blog, we detailed how our fears of air travel from Grand Forks to California were assuaged by trust in God and by what seemed to us to be the help of near angel-like people. We left off with our landing in San Francisco. Our first couple of days in California were spent in the Cupertino area where Apple has a corporate office called Apple Park or Apple Campus 2. We both carry iPhones in our pockets and sport Apple watches on our wrists, so it was cool to be in “Apple Town.” This is a beautiful area with few bugs (except in the phones), perpetually sunny skies, an amazing array of bush and flower types, warm temperatures year-round, and swarming Teslas.  Time One reason we were in Cupertino was that it had a solid and reasonable handicapped-accessible hotel close to our son’s in-laws who we promised to visit if we ever were in the area. Well, we were only a few miles from them so we arranged to meet them on a Saturday evening. Let me just say “disabi

The Challenge I am on a road in retirement that began prematurely as medically approved disability leave from my school teaching job about four years ago. The road has had all sorts of adventures discussed in previous blogs. I finally undertook some serious actual pavement travel this summer to the tune of not one but two, two-thousand-mile auto round trips; always with a nagging anxiety in tow related to future air travel; could I do that? When I was healthy, walking, talking, and eating without any aids whatsoever, air travel was invigorating and fun. Now air travel loomed as even more frightening because it was becoming apparent that it was definitely possible. Air travel was now in my vocabulary; a challenge with daunting logistics and untold hazards to navigate compared to car travel. I’ll admit I was afraid.  Soothing Words Fears Assuaged One of the worst things a person can do with fear is keep it inside and not speak to anyone about it. So I spoke to my oldest son. I’m not even