A time to end, a time to restart

For the most part, I have only posted to this blog when I have traveled or have a new adventure. Given the demands of job and family, that was sporadic.

But I'm back. With luck, laid back.

I taught my last class three weeks ago and donned my cap and gown for a last University of Missouri School of Journalism commencement a week ago. I'm retired -- sort of. My paperwork doesn't put me on a pension until Sept. 1, but I have no summer classes and no university duties.

It's an odd feeling, this retirement.  It is somewhat like an atheist, a mystic and a believer talking about the afterlife. Part of me seems to have simply vanished. Part of me has merged with the greater good. And part of me has faith that something even better is coming.

I can't do much about the first except to sigh. I'm quite proud of the second option. And the third -- oh that third. Better things are indeed coming.

Tomorrow Cecile and I go to Backus, MN, to pick up a brand new, 13-foot Scamp trailer. It will be our Tardis, our Transporter, our covered wagon and our embodied daydreams for the foreseeable future. We plan to travel extensively and write our own adventures.

Not that some have not already been written for us. On Mothers Day -- Aug. 14 -- our grandson Fletcher Avel Bentley was born in Knoxville, TN. Though we drove there shortly after his arrival, we expect that the Scamp will give us many excuses to visit son Garrett, daughter-in-law Brittany and our newest progeny.

The trailer will also be out travel ticket to Oregon this summer to visit daughter Gillian, her husband Will and our first set of grandchildren -- Evelyn and Briton.

But first we have to get the trailer. That means I need to get some sleep in this Minnesota hotel, wake early and drive the next few miles to Backus. Backus.  Hmm, seems a good omen for a return to blogging.