Ten Years of Retirement - Part 2 of 4

We’ve been retired for 10 years.  This is a look back at our first couple of years.

2010 Continued

July - After spending the first part of July in Yellowstone we moved to the west side of Glacier National Park in Montana.

Avalanche Gorge

After several days on the West side of Glacier, we moved to the East side.

Bighorn Sheep

For my birthday we drove into Canada for the day.

Mid-July we headed back to Montana.  We tried our hand at gold panning and found a little gold and many garnets.

We found gold!

We went from panning for gold in Montana to caves in Idaho.

Minnetonka Cave

From Idaho we started heading home quickly.  After about a month in the Central Texas heat, we decided we were crazy and packed up the RV for Ruidoso, New Mexico.  We were retired after all, no need to be in Texas during the summer!

On our way out of Texas we stopped at Caverns of Sonora.  It’s a beautiful cave that we have been through a couple of times.  It’s always nice and cool too!

Caverns of Sonora, Texas

We spent a couple of nights at Balmorhea State Park and spent a lot of time in the pool.

Balmorhea State Park.

Spring-fed pool.

We finally got to Ruidoso, New Mexico where it was much cooler and did a lot of hiking and even a little geocaching.

We had to get back to Texas to start our first volunteer assignment on October 1 at LBJ State Park in Stonewall.

We spent three months here.  I worked in the gift shop while Mark worked at the Sauer-Beckmann Living History Farm.

Mark being a farmer.

Mark milking a cow.  It's not as easy as it looks!

We had plenty of time to visit the towns in the area.

Octoberfest in Fredericksburg

November - In November we started decorating LBJ State Park for Christmas.  It was a lot of fun putting up the Christmas tree and all the decorations.

LBJ State Park Visitor Center

December - We bought our park model house in the Texas Hill Country.  This is a beautiful area of Texas.

LBJ state park celebrated it’s 41st year of lighting the Christmas Tree and we helped with the festivities.

41st Annual Tree Lighting - LBJ State Park

Our route from Rockport, Texas (Goose Island State Park) to

Glacier National Park, Montana

Next time:   More from our beginning retirement years.