Born and bred a city boy, it wasn’t until just before high school when we moved out to the “burbs” that I realized playgrounds were supposed to be grass, not cement, and swimming in a lake far exceeded the pleasure of cooling off under the spray of an open fire hydrant. This is probably behind my propensity to gravitate toward the outdoors and small towns, rather than cement jungles and big cities in my travels.
I grew up in New York State and after my first round of college I moved to California to pursue adult life, a career, and leave snow shoveling behind. It was in California that I had the honor and privilege to serve the people throughout a long and rewarding career in government. After a 35 year career in public safety, I “retired” intending to slow down and decompress from the constant grind of work and commute. In Southern California we measure our commute in time, not miles. More often than not, time is measured in hours not minutes.
I did a fair share of travelling in my 35 years of dutiful civil service. Half of this business travel was bureaucratic centric, followed a very distinct and rigid agenda, and involved hundreds of airports and taxi’s. The other half of my business travel generally involved responding to a calamity of some sorts such as a fire, earthquake, or flood. I worked with the finest professional public servants in the world and enjoyed every minute of this time, but these were anything but pleasure trips. They were demanding, both physically and mentally, and were often tragic for the communities we were in.
Now with full time civil service in the rear view mirror, I balance my new found time between government consulting and travelling. Don’t get me wrong, both are motivating and rewarding in their own ways. I am blessed to be able to keep the proverbial foot in the door of the inner sanctum of the big government machine, yet exploring just seems to reap rewards not found other places.
A few things that you can expect of me during our travels together. One is my preferences, which will often be evident by my travels. Small town is better than big city (been there, done that). Slow paced is better than fast. Side roads are preferable over interstates. Winding roads are better than straight ones. No stars is sometimes better than 4 stars (And why do they put chocolate on the pillows at those fancy schmancy places anyway?). I enjoy eating and a really good cup of coffee now and again (If eating was a sport, I would be an Olympian). Lastly, though in possession of a collection of undergraduate and graduate degrees, I tend to write exactly how I feel and how people prefer to read. After all, I am striving for easy on the eyes blogging and not an A in quantitative research. I hope that works for you.
Enough said. Time to roll. Jump in, hold on to the grab bar, and pull that seat belt tight. Off we go!
