Kim and I were burned out. And we didn’t want to wait and lose the opportunity to do the things on our “bucket list”. We started to think.  We are both planners.  We map out a strategy, gather information, gain knowledge, then make a plan and execute it.  We knew we liked travel and we knew there were a lot of places we wanted to see.  But how to do it?

The Colosseum in Rome

Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Put-In-Bay, Ohio

Breckenridge, Colorado

We accepted that were weren’t going to be able to “retire” permanently.  We are certainly financially comfortable as long as we work.  But pediatricians are the lowest paid of all doctors and I enjoy working in underserved communities, which is definitely NOT where the money is.  Don’t get me started about the compensation for child life specialists.

So, we decided we would take our retirement in installments.  Or perhaps consider it an “extended sabbatical”.  In any event, we’d put our careers on pause, go see the world, then come back and work more later.

Great.  Now what?

Have you heard of this thing called YouTube?  Not sure whether it’s a blessing or a curse.  But we had a pandemic and an empty nest.  Suddenly, we needed to fill some holes in our schedule.  “Hey, honey, this guy built a Tie Fighter out of popsicle sticks!”  “Wow, we need to make croissants.”  Did you know there are channels for people who like to watch lawns being mowed?  No joke.  We gravitated to travel channels.  Kara and Nate.  Eamon and Bec.  They got us thinking about van life:  Buy a converted sprinter van and tour the hemisphere in our rolling home.

Then I stumbled upon some sailing channels:  Sailing SV Delos, RAN Sailing, Sailing Uma, Sailing Yacht Florence.  Buy a boat and sail the world!

Wait.  We don’t sail. That puts a damper on things…

Well, that’s not completely true.  I grew up sailing on our family’s sailboat on Lake Erie. 

But that was 35 years ago.  I had taken Kim and the kids out on day sails a couple of times, but that was it.  Van life seemed a lot more feasible.

Then Maine happened.  Kim’s sister and brother-in-law live in Maine on the coast.  And they have a sailboat.  We visited.  They took us out.  I was hooked.  100%.  All in.  I had managed to forget how much I loved sailing when I was younger but it all came back.  So really, it’s all their fault.

Wait.  We don’t sail.  Right.  That’s a problem.  But the van!  But the boat!  Dang!