Friday, July 30, 2010

You'd better get ready! Tim Billings may be coming to your town!


Tim Billings and his wife, Ruthie, are both fully retired now and have embarked on a 2-3 month retirement road trip.

Their route includes places where relatives and old friends live, as well as tourist attractions. The destinations, length of stay and times of departure are incredibly flexible. They don't have to stick to a strict schedule and, by golly, they aren't going to! After all, they're retired!

After leaving their home in New Jersey on July 12, 2010, they visited relatives in Boston, Mass., and Keene, N.H. Not sure what all they did before making their way to Grove City, Pa., where Peggy Loughner Fisher, the leader of our Gator pack, lives. (Peggy took the photo above.)

Then on July 18, they came to Cleveland, Ohio, where they visited Alana Miltak Baranick (that would be me) and went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Peggy and Dianne Ilgenfritz Brudney met the gang there after taking a side trip to Medina, Ohio, to see classmate Darlene Schwartzmiller Jones.

The Billingses headed south toward Columbus, Ohio, after that, but made a quick adjustment when one of Tim's Vietnam buddies was out of town. The last I heard, they were taking a detour to do the tourist thing in Kentucky.

Tim has promised to share stories from the road on this blog. And you know he's a wonderful storyteller.

Keep checking back to see what he has to say. We'll do our best to mention his new blog posts on Facebook.

As I understand it, Tim and Ruthie will be traveling through Illinois, Minnesota (where Tim's brother, Phil, lives), Montana, Washington State, California, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas (where they'll see our classmate Jay Lehman), Missouri, Alabama, Virginia and Maryland.

They'll check out Yosemite, Sequoia and Carlsbad Caverns national parks. They'll visit Memphis, New Orelans, Roswell, N.M., and Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., before returning to Jersey.

Contact Tim, if you want to see them when they get to your neck of the woods.

"I know many retirees who spent years planning great adventures for their retirement, yet never managed to do them," Tim said a few weeks ago. "So we are going to start retirement with a bang, and this time I get to see our great country without hitchhiking!"