Wow, what have I been thinking, it has been well over a year since we moved into our retirement home and I have basically been remiss in keeping this blog up to date. Spent a lot of time on the other, Old Virginian blog though, so sorry to any readers out there. Though I doubt there are any or not many at all who still read this blog since we had to sell the Misty Lady and moved back on shore because I my physical constraints.
We truly miss all our friends and acquaintances from our days afloat. Since selling our home in Northern Virginia and moving down to the Tidewater area, specifically into Williamsburg, VA, we have not been able to keep up with too many of those wonderful folks we lived among during our motor yachting days. We truly miss the comradeship and just plain friendly folks on the DC waterfront and the Capital Yacht Club.
Our retirement home is in a 55+ community and is a three bedroom, two/half bath two level town home. This is the largest home the Bride and I have ever owned. The closest was a town home in Leesburg, VA but the majority of our former homes have been condo apartments. A friend from Arlington, when he found out about our new home said that he was amazed, because seniors approaching retirement opt for much smaller quarters and we went the opposite. We like this place, because the entire community is composed of senior citizens, with extensive community facilities for all of the owners. We have a fine dining restaurant and a pub/grill in our community Clubhouse and a champion designed golf course and facilities.
We are within easy reach of the history triangle of Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown. Additionally, we are very close to Hampton, the oldest continuous English speaking settlement in the country, having been settled initially in 1610 and occupied as a town/city ever since. Being a history buff, the old man is in tall cotton with all the great historical places to visit.
While I miss being close to my kids and grand kids, (140+ miles), we still get a chance to get up that way quite often. Seems like I see them more since we have been down here in Tidewater than we did when we were in Alexandria. We have a great car to make the round trip, our new GMC Terrain SLT SUV. We finally decided on a name for our girl, (yeah, we do name our cars, boats, etc). We name our SUV Boomer. She is a bright (Volcanic Red) red four door, AWD 2024 GMC and has many travel aids for old folks like us such as the driver assist, enhanced cruise control, and other goodies that make it a joy to travel in. And NO, I am not a paid person for GM. Just love my GM vehicles, especially because of that OnStar system. That system has saved out bacon a number of times.
Well, I have rambled on but hopefully brought some update info on our lives ashore, (we still hope to one day buy another motor yacht and go back on the water).
So, for anyone who still actually reads these words, thank you and please drop a note or just say HI! In a later post I hope to include some photos of our new home and special sites.
Till the next time, the old Curmudgeon signing off.
Author: harv1941
Just a summary, I am 84 years of age, retired in July 2013 and settled down to promoting the dangers of bacterial meningitis, which killed my beloved son, Mike in 2009. My wife, Charlotte, and I embarked on an adventure of live aboard cruising, aboard a large Blue Water motor yacht. While our beginning was rather fraught with hurdles, we continued to look forward to the day we moved aboard the Misty Lady and cruise the eastern seaboard and associated waterways. After more than four years of life aboard this Bluewater Motor Yacht, I developed an advanced problem due to interaction with medications and experienced rather frightening balance problems. Therefore, getting on and off the yacht was fraught with danger of falling between the docks and the boat's hull. Walking the docks was also problematic considering that our yacht club docks were all floating docks and my balance problem was a danger during the walk from our yacht's docking slip to the clubhouse or out to the DC Wharf facilities and our car housed in the yacht club's reserved garage. SO, we had to regretfully put the Misty Lady up for sale and move back on shore. We moved on shore, first into a condo apartment in Alexandria, then after two years there, we relocated to the city of Newport News, in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Our original desired location was in the city of Hampton, Virginia, which is the oldest English-speaking settlement in the United States having been established originally in 1610. My ancestors came to this country through this settlement in the mid 1600s and lived in that area for around 100 years before beginning a migration of one portion of our family toward the west.
I looked forward to moving back to this area and exploring the roots of my family, both maternal and paternal ancestry, but we found a great house in the Newport News area and became ensconced in the terrific neighborhood of Kiln Creek. My wife, being still actively employed, received a substantial offer in a position with a government contractor firm back up in Northern Virginia. So we put the Newport News house up for sale, receiving and accepting an offer withing two days. We then relocated back up to the city of Alexandria and into another high rise condo. My wife reached a point where considerations for retirement were becoming very important. She indicated that she really didn't want to retire in Alexandria, so once again we began a house search in the Tidewater area, this time in the City of Williamsburg and in a community restricted to 55+ age owners. We found the ideal location, initiated the sale and closing for our retirement home. We then put our condo on the market. Alas, the market was not as robust as before so we had to change asking price a couple of time, but finally the Alexandria Condo was sold. Now we are set to enjoy the great locations found here in the Tidewater/Hampton Roads area, considering that we are history buffs and there are literally hundreds of historical sites in this segment of our nation. Of course living in Williamsburg is the epitome of history living life.
So, now we are in our retirement home, in a great retirement type community. A great clubhouse with a fine dining restaurant, a grill/pub, an award winning PGA designed golf course and miles of walking trails. Looking forward to my wife's eventual full retirement and the two of us visiting all up and down the east coast historical spots.
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Misty Lady Thought and Comment 