When I was working I had three weeks of vacation time to travel. The second year of my retirement we travelled for three months, and did it at one-half the cost of those three weeks formerly allotted in my working days.
These days, we rarely pay for lodging. When we leave town, someone stays in our house and we stay in theirs. Last year we had a wonderful stay in a 200-year-old home in Vermont. The first morning, I got out of bed early, went downstairs and made coffee to enjoy out on the screened porch. On the kitchen counter was a bowl of peanut shells Doug had left out the night before. Except, all the shells were on the counter, not in the bowl.
I didn’t think Doug would have been so messy. I left it there so I could show him when he woke up. As I suspected, when he left it the previous night, the shells were in the bowl. We either had a ghost or a mouse.
I liked the idea that we had a ghost in this historic home, I found a book in the family room that detailed the history of the house, but as far as I could see, no one had died there. I think that’s the only way you can get ghosts, but I’m no expert.
That evening while we were sipping our wine in the garden, Doug went back in the house to replenish our hors d’oeuvres. He came back white-faced and empty handed. Almost like he had seen a ghost. He had actually seen a mouse. Startled, it ran into the dishwasher. He wanted me to come in and help him fish it out.
Well, you can just imagine the scene from there. To make a long-story short, the mouse had actually escaped through a gap between the dishwasher and the countertop, so we didn’t actually have to see him again.
Yes, a little different than staying in a hotel room, but makes for a better story, don’t you think?
For more unconventional lodging stories, see my post at U.S. News & World Report, How to Travel Affordably in Retirement.
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This is a post from Retirement: A Full-Time Job
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