Retirement!!!

My wife and I retired two and a half years ago at 60. We keep busy in the puckerbrush on a pair of Huskies and a pair of KTM 690's we camp off. We like to camp for two, three or four weeks at a time, Idaho or SW Oregon, Northern Nevada are favorites.

We picked up two GSA's a year ago and put over 15,000 miles on two big trips and a lot of weekends last year. Some amazing country in the western US. I hope I learn to like the GSA as much as the KTM, the KTM is the best bike I've had.

We spend about a month in Death Valley each spring with the bikes, exploring the back country. May add the southern CA BDR this year too, a good portion of it is in Death Valley NP. I'd like to finish up the northern section of the Idaho BDR over a week as well.

Kind of dream about an Alaska trip, my wife has a cousin in Haines we should visit! Next year.......

Shoulders are both bone on bone and sometimes hurt like hell. CBD seems to help a lot along with handlebars adjusted to put less pressure on the joints...should have retired a couple years earlier for sure.

We split our time with several week long plus rafting trips during the year.

Retirement

river-runner said:

My wife and I retired two and a half years ago at 60. We keep busy in the puckerbrush on a pair of Huskies and a pair of KTM 690's we camp off. We like to camp for two, three or four weeks at a time, Idaho or SW Oregon, Northern Nevada are favorites.

We picked up two GSA's a year ago and put over 15,000 miles on two big trips and a lot of weekends last year. Some amazing country in the western US. I hope I learn to like the GSA as much as the KTM, the KTM is the best bike I've had.

We spend about a month in Death Valley each spring with the bikes, exploring the back country. May add the southern CA BDR this year too, a good portion of it is in Death Valley NP. I'd like to finish up the northern section of the Idaho BDR over a week as well.

Kind of dream about an Alaska trip, my wife has a cousin in Haines we should visit! Next year.......

Shoulders are both bone on bone and sometimes hurt like hell. CBD seems to help a lot along with handlebars adjusted to put less pressure on the joints...should have retired a couple years earlier for sure.

We split our time with several week long plus rafting trips during the year.

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I am at the juncture of work more vs retirement. I doubt that I will need or use the extra money. I sure like by RT and my new GS. See you on the road!

KBell50 said:

I am at the juncture of work more vs retirement. I doubt that I will need or use the extra money. I sure like by RT and my new GS. See you on the road!

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Too many people just keep padding their bank accounts, and then one day they die.

You can never buy more time on this earth.

Retire as soon as possible - live within your means - and never look back with regret.

greenwald said:

Too many people just keep padding their bank accounts, and then one day they die.

You can never buy more time on this earth.

Retire as soon as possible - live within your means - and never look back with regret.

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Good Advice. Luckily for me there is no padding in my bank accounts thanks to the X so my decision to keep working is an easy one. Maybe one day in my 60’s.

Hope your well up there in the great white north Kevin.

greenwald said:

Too many people just keep padding their bank accounts, and then one day they die.

You can never buy more time on this earth.

Retire as soon as possible - live within your means - and never look back with regret.

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Exactly. We retired when I was 60 and Annie 56. Had planned to work until 65 but meeting Voni and Paul in Alaska and having a brother-in-law drop dead at age 58 were great motivators. No regrets for sure. We can do just about anything we want to do, just not everything we want to do.

I posted on this thread a few years ago. I retired (mandatory) at 65. I loved my career, but it kept me away from home 16 to 20 days a month so I missed a lot of extended family activities and holidays. I'm enjoying my time with family and friends and being able to pack up and go when I want and not when my bid vacation would allow. I admit that I do miss aspects of my working life, but I think that's a normal reaction. I wouldn't go back now if I could. Now, almost three years into my new life, I realize that doing my job longer wasn't going to make it any better.

Doug

rangerreece said:

Good Advice. Luckily for me there is no padding in my bank accounts thanks to the X so my decision to keep working is an easy one. Maybe one day in my 60’s.

Hope your well up there in the great white north Kevin.

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Thanks Reece.

16 below right now, with winds that push it to minus 50 for exposed skin. Not pleasant. Son is at Fort Lewis-McCord on business this week - just got pics of him at the Space Needle a few hours ago. Nicer weather.

You just keep that latest batch of Army aviators sharp, and case your colors when the time is right.

greenwald said:

Thanks Reece.

16 below right now, with winds that push it to minus 50 for exposed skin. Not pleasant. Son is at Fort Lewis-McCord on business this week - just got pics of him at the Space Needle a few hours ago. Nicer weather.

You just keep that latest batch of Army aviators sharp, and case your colors when the time is right.

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Roger that sir. On another note, as a former LEO I hope you would be proud of me. I got a “warning” from the Opp, AL PD Saturday on my bike coming back from the Pensacola dealership and club meeting. Sunday I found the police department and brought them pizza and soda. They acted like no one ever brought them dinner after being pulled over and let off with a warning.

My son is moving to Seattle in a couple of weeks. I’m going to miss him terribly.

I retired in October last year at 62. We sold our house the year before that. We bought a travel trailer, a truck with which to pull it and a ramp to load the motorcycle in the back of the truck. So far we love being homeless!

So far so good. I plan on retiring from the Correctional Service here in Ontario in March 2020.
$20,000 in debt at the bank should be paid off by about October and then I'll have 5 months to pad
the bank account before I head out to pasture. Tentative plan A is to ride to the 4 corners of the
USA with a good friend from Alberta and when we get to Blaine Washington, take the ferry to Alaska.
Once Alaska is sufficiently explored we ride back to Edmonton and I then ride back to Ontario.
That should do for starters.

rangerreece said:

Roger that sir. On another note, as a former LEO I hope you would be proud of me. I got a “warning” from the Opp, AL PD Saturday on my bike coming back from the Pensacola dealership and club meeting. Sunday I found the police department and brought them pizza and soda. They acted like no one ever brought them dinner after being pulled over and let off with a warning.

My son is moving to Seattle in a couple of weeks. I’m going to miss him terribly.

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Proud I am. Your act was a rare and much appreciated gesture of respect virtually absent from the interactive 'LEO-Citizen' matrix in today's society. Rest assured they're still talking about that Beemer-guy today yet at the station house.!

Sad when offspring move light-years away. My son put down roots in Colorado Springs with a 4-bedroom home purchase this month. Daughter will be ordained in Berkeley this May and with my luck, will accept her first call to the Lutheran ministry in...….. Anchorage?!

I've got enough frequent-flyer miles with Southwest for airfare to Neptune!

Kids.

bullet said:

So far so good. I plan on retiring from the Correctional Service here in Ontario in March 2020.
$20,000 in debt at the bank should be paid off by about October and then I'll have 5 months to pad
the bank account before I head out to pasture. Tentative plan A is to ride to the 4 corners of the
USA with a good friend from Alberta and when we get to Blaine Washington, take the ferry to Alaska.
Once Alaska is sufficiently explored we ride back to Edmonton and I then ride back to Ontario.
That should do for starters.

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Just to be sure, "retiring from the Correctional Service" isn't a Canadian way of saying getting out on parole, is it?

I met a Canadian Correctional Officer from Quebec a few years ago in Dawson City. She was on a Hayabusa, of all things, and had come through Alaska and across the Top of the World Highway. She was a small person and the Hayabusa was a handful on the slick TOW. She changed her plans to ride to Inuvik. She was a very competent rider but the bike was not suited to what she wanted to do. I saw her a few years later back in Dawson on a G650GS and she made it up the Dempster.

LOL. No, I assure you I was not a guest of her majesty the prime minister of Canada (I just thought of that
- that's funny because Trudeau is such a pansy) but a faithful employee of the province of Ontario.
Never had a job where the hours and days crawl by but the years seem to disappear in a flash. Maybe it's
the job, maybe it's just the aging process, I don't know. One thing I do know is that I am soooo looking
forward to not having to go to work anymore. I like Fitzer's idea: become a full-time rally rat.
or what I like to call a professional vacationist. Never been to Alaska but I imagine the RT can handle it.

akbeemer said:

Just to be sure, "retiring from the Correctional Service" isn't a Canadian way of saying getting out on parole, is it?

I met a Canadian Correctional Officer from Quebec a few years ago in Dawson City. She was on a Hayabusa, of all things, and had come through Alaska and across the Top of the World Highway. She was a small person and the Hayabusa was a handful on the slick TOW. She changed her plans to ride to Inuvik. She was a very competent rider but the bike was not suited to what she wanted to do. I saw her a few years later back in Dawson on a G650GS and she made it up the Dempster.

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Congrats on your retirement, keep having all that fun, I am loving reading about all who have retired, I was forced to retire at 50 due to three bad auto accidents and go on to disability. I tried to work laying on the floor but that did not work out. All of my hobby's have gone into business's and they were all bought out and I'm riding again after 30 years not being able to, the most fun besides playing piano, guitar, used to play drums for a living, I have had in some time, I for got just how addictive it is, watching the weather to see when it won't be raining. I'm in south Tx and we've had a very mild winter this year, I've got a 09 1200rt now, 30 years ago the bike was a Goldwing, but do thoroughly enjoy your retirement, my Dad and Mom did the second time around to.

pending retirement

Last week I had an awful week at work. Second time in a week we lost being able to use our large color production printer. First time it got fixed in 2 days after running the IT ticket up the food chain. Less than a week later we lost it again. This time it took 2.5 days just to get someone to escalate the IT ticket and then it was profound silence until it got run higher on the food chain. Finally got to have a conference call with Xerox service and IT and had them walk me thru all sorts of troubleshooting stuff. This was on Friday after hollering for help for almost the whole week. Finally got determined that they really did have a problem that needs a live Xerox tech in to look at it. They come in tomorrow. It's been over a week that we've been down and in the meantime we've killed a couple of the smaller printers and pissed off a lot people trying to keep up with production needs. At one point I said to my boss "In August I turn 62 and a half." She just looked at me and said "I understand your frustration." Not sure she does...... But the longer this idiocy goes on the better a poor retirement looks. At 62 y.o. I am almost out of patience with the working world.

Louise

NewEnglander said:

At 62 y.o. I am almost out of patience with the working world.
Louise

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That's what drove me to retire at 62. Between the sales dept that promised products so incredibly niche that all potential profits were eaten up by changeover penalties on the production line, marketing that redesigned packaging but left out the registration marks that told the packaging line where one bag ended and the next began, to the CEO letting 660 hard working Vermonters go so he could buy an executive jet which became an enormous black money pit...I just got too tired to contribute to the madness.

Coming up on my ninth month of retirement and have never enjoyed life more than now!

Pete

glenfiddich said:

That's what drove me to retire at 62. Between the sales dept that promised products so incredibly niche that all potential profits were eaten up by changeover penalties on the production line, marketing that redesigned packaging but left out the registration marks that told the packaging line where one bag ended and the next began, to the CEO letting 660 hard working Vermonters go so he could buy an executive jet which became an enormous black money pit...I just got too tired to contribute to the madness.

Coming up on my ninth month of retirement and have never enjoyed life more than now!

Pete

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One for each of your months!

I could have retired at 50, but stayed to 53 to max out the LEO pension. Been out 13 years now, and loved every minute of it. Should have gone at 50.

2nd Career

glenfiddich said:

That's what drove me to retire at 62. Between the sales dept that promised products so incredibly niche that all potential profits were eaten up by changeover penalties on the production line, marketing that redesigned packaging but left out the registration marks that told the packaging line where one bag ended and the next began, to the CEO letting 660 hard working Vermonters go so he could buy an executive jet which became an enormous black money pit...I just got too tired to contribute to the madness.

Coming up on my ninth month of retirement and have never enjoyed life more than now!

Pete

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What about that new career in the body shop?

179212 said:

What about that new career in the body shop?

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Are you perchance referring to his $150,000 sidecar? That workmanship boggles my mind.

Preparing for the Iron Butt Rally on my K75 I finished my Harley FLH trunk and enlarged fuel tank with Duplicolor truck bed liner.

179212 said:

What about that new career in the body shop?

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I was reflecting on that last night. That attention to detail was learned in the service, then honed at Green Mountain Coffee when we were an employee-owned family. It was a remarkable place to work and learn, with a focus on quality second to none. Then Keurig took over and everything changed to the ethics of greed. Quantity over quality. That's when I knew it was time to leave the workforce. But the gifts of those early years keep giving!

Now if I can just remember how to put the darned thing back together!

Pete