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When I was a kid I loved the snow. I could hardly wait for the fluffy stuff to pile up so a snow day would be declared and we could play outside for hours. Sledding down the sidewalks and nearby snow hills, building forts and playing Flintstones and King of the Hill would assure a great night’s sleep that night – with dreams of doing it all again tomorrow.

As the Years Go By

Fast forward a couple of decades and we’re sledding with our daughters – watching the glee on their faces as we whisk down the hill. Even when we’d have to take a dive to avoid a dreaded crash and burn (reemerging with a face-full of snow), the laughter is forever embedded on my brain. Snowmen and snow forts dotted our yard and smelly boots and soggy mittens cluttered our side door.

Farther down the road of life, building snowmen with our grandkids is everything we had ever hoped for. The joy on their little faces just warms my heart, but to me their little faces are equally as joyful as we sip our celebratory cup of hot chocolate – back in the warm house.

Winter is Fun?

I guess where we went wrong was that typical Wisconsin outdoor “winter fun” pastimes have never been our thing. Skis, snowmobiles or ice-fishing equipment have never had a place in our garage. Over the years, playing in the snow has been replaced by dreading the snow. Wisconsin has been home for 35 years and we have no intention of leaving it permanently, but we’ve come to the conclusion that we’d like to flee its frigid winters and return when things start to warm up, for the best of both worlds.

Sixty Years is Enough

I will admit that building a snowman is pretty fun, snow is beautiful as it piles up on the evergreens – especially if Christmas lights are in the mix, and even the bare tree branches are awesome after an ice storm when they glisten in the sunlight. But sixty years is enough.

Last year about this time we were checked into a great little house overlooking a river in Lakeway, TX heading southWEST – with stops in Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Missouri. It was quite an undertaking for our first retirement road trip, so be sure to check it out at Escape the Tundra 2019.

Great Timing!

As it turned out, our timing couldn’t have been better. The brutal winter of 2019 dumped excessive amounts of snow and blasted bitter cold temps in the midwest, which sagged down and caused below-average temps and above-average precipitation across most of the country. We ran into some weather-related stress, but it seemed to clear up just before we had to make a move to our next location.

We came away feeling very thankful for making it home safely, especially given the higher elevations in northern Arizona and Utah. Although quite beautiful, we vowed that our next trip to that area would be in early spring or late fall – when crowds are still low, but the weather would be more predictable.

Let’s Give Florida a Try

This year we are headed southEAST – to Florida. Living in the midwest, one would think that we are at the mid-point of the U.S., but we are actually at about the two-third’s mark, so last year’s trip covered about two-thirds of the country. Our trip to Florida this year will cut our drive time in half, and because Florida is a timeshare mecca, we have a nice selection of accommodations from which to choose with fewer hotel nights, making this a much more reasonably-priced trip. Plus we’ll have none of the higher elevations to contend with, so snow and ice will (hopefully) not be in the forecast.

We Have our Doubts

We have been to Florida several times over the years and we’ve always enjoyed the warmer weather (and Disney World!), but as our departure date approached, I became a little apprehensive. Last year’s trip was so awesome – how would this compare? We really don’t think of ourselves as beach people – we’re more mountains-, waterfalls-, and pines-lovers. Will there be enough to keep us busy in Florida? Will it just become mundane? I guess we’ll find out!

First up: The Emerald Coast

Happy trails,
Barb