Retirement Quests

Our friend, Tom has a retirement quest.  He wants to ride his bicycle across the U.S.  Not all at once, but in installments.  And though he is riding from West to East, he isn’t riding the segments in order.  Three years ago, with us along, he rode across Minnesota and then down the Mississippi River into Iowa.  The next year he and Bill headed out to Washington and began the western leg of the trip, ending in Montana.  One year ago, surgery kept Tom off the bicycle.

This year we joined Tom, picking up in northern Iowa, continuing down the Mississippi River, grown wide and deep compared to the trickle we first cris-crossed in Minnesota, and then headed into Illinois.  We stopped for a beer at a microbrewery in Potosi Wisconsin, learned that Abe Lincoln gave a speech in Galena Illinois, once a thriving river port,  and felt the scaleless skin of a sturgeon in the Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque.    We talked with a couple of past and current farmers about how farming has changed.  We ate in downtown diners and had the world’s best rootbeer floats while looking out over a river lock in Guttenburg Iowa. 

A quest like Tom’s  is certainly one way of approaching the “what will I do?” question.  It also has the potential to start your retirement in a good direction.  A high school friend of Bill’s was overweight and out of shape when he retired.  He decided to walk the Appalachian Trail – all of it.  He dealt with the logistics, bought the equipment and began carrying a backpack on walks around the neighborhood.  He did walk the trail and had a great time.  He is now leaner and healthier than he’s been in years.   

Quests take many directions.  Often they involve a passion which has been difficult to pursue during decades of full time work.  Our Missouri Master Naturalist group includes several retirees with a passion for nature.  They give many hours of work to local conservation groups and nature centers.  This past Thursday a couple of us helped teach canoeing to urban fourth graders.  Most of these kids had never been in a canoe. There was some chaos and a few tears while canoes spun in circles or girls and boys desperately paddled forward further lodging their aluminum boat into a marshy bank.  At the end of the day, we were exhausted and hoarse from yelling instructions across the water – “paddle on the left, no the other left!”.  It was incredibly gratifying.  Watching someone find delight in swooping dragonflies and croaking frogs for the first time is a hoot.   Sharing my love of the outdoors with a new generation of kids that are grateful for the experience is positive feedback that I generally don’t get from my paid job. 

Downhill is nice

Sometimes a quest just lasts a year.  I know a man who retired, thinking that he would hunt and fish every day for the rest of his life.  He did that for a year and had a great time.  But at that point he decided he wanted more structure.  He found a job with less stress than his former job and still hunts and fishes on vacations but chooses to combine that with work. 

Perhaps that is the purpose of a quest, to give structure to your life.  It is possible that Tom will not finish his bicycle ride across the country.  But he’ll sure have some good stories to tell. 

Like the one about the hill in the river bluffs that two of us walked up, pushing our bicycles.  And the woman in a big pickup truck at the top who told us that some days her truck can’t make it up that hill. 

I’d love to hear from you.  Did you have a goal or quest for your retirement?  Have you been able to pursue it?  Did you change your mind? 

Some additional resources on retirement passions and quests: 

I love this series of Jane Pauley interviews with people reinventing themselves in later life. 

Adventure Cycling has some great articles about bicycling quests.