Wow, I never thought I would be writing this at the ripe young age of 57, but I officially retired today. I’ve been thinking about this and preparing for it for a couple years, but now it’s a done deal. A couple posts ago I wrote about my last business trip to Louisiana, followed by a short tease post on our trip last weekend to Jekyll Island, but today I am glad to post I am moving on as a happy retiree. (Did I ever mention I love rocking chairs, such as this one at Jekyll. As a kid and to this day, I still love to “rock” – it really relaxes me!)
Here’s a couple pre-retirement pics from last weekend at Jekyll Island, where we have an annual pre-Christmas weekend party with friends and family. We exchange gifts with others in our suite over the weekend, and Steve (DOS) gave me this retirement coffee mug, as well as a wine glass and a couple other pre-retirement gifts to get me in the retirement mood.
I still need to finish my Jekyll Island weekend posts, but will work on these soon now that I have more time. We had such a wonderful weekend at Jekyll that I don’t want to rush the post through without all the fun photos. Ok, here was one of the 12 drummer’s drumming, which was part of a drive thru twelve days of Christmas display.
Today and yesterday I worked remote office on my last two days of work. It was actually quite busy finishing up the loose ends, verifying benefits, last minute emails, phone calls, etc, and eventually rushing to return my laptop, cell phone, badge etc to Fed’x before the 6:30pm cutoff time. Here’s a pic of me at home with everything boxed up and ready to go.
I guess you would call it an anti-climatic day work-wise, but socially it was busy. After 18 1/2 years at the same company, many co-workers emailed or called to congratulate me and wish me well. It still hasn’t hit me yet, and probably won’t until the beginning of the year, as this is the busy Christmas season when many people are off right now.
After work, Steve (DOS) and I headed down to the Orlando Airport Hyatt Regency were we are staying tonight. While we normally only stay there when we have an early flight, it was actually a nice start to my retirement, and we had a late dinner there. Our flight to Roanoke (via Charlotte) is not until noon tomorrow, so we can sleep in a bit, have the breakfast buffet at the Hyatt, and then head to our gate without leaving the terminal.
We had a nice dinner at McCoy’s Restaurant, located on the 4th floor lobby level of the Hyatt. We always like eating at McCoy’s, as well as breakfast in the other 9th floor restaurant, Hemispheres in the morning before our flight.
It’s now 11:30pm, and I’m pretty tired out; still recovering from the Jekyll Island weekend, and late last couple nights finishing up work and getting ready for Roanoke.
After traveling for work since 1986, as I said in my farewell email among other things, “It’s been quite a wild ride”! And now hopefully the rest of the “ride” will be more volunteer work, visiting family, and maybe even more trips to Jekyll Island such as this one from last weekend. Godspeed.
