Annual Tarpon Adventure 2017

Typically this week would be our annual Tarpon fishing trip to the Keys. At least it has been for the last 16 years running.

But instead of being in the Keys on a flats boat, I'm sitting in a waiting room in the Cleveland Laser Spine Institute while my wife is in surgery. She has had a back issue for quite a while now and it was time to get it taken care of before it got any worse.

LSI does have a location in Tampa and I did suggest (jokingly, of course) that she could have gotten the procedure done in Tampa while I skipped down to Key Largo and not have to cancel my guide for the week. But she wasn't buying that.

So there will be no photos this year of fish, sunsets, or other Keys stuff. Hopefully next June (I left my deposit with the guide to secure the week in 2018).

Well DarDy's some things are more important than old scaly fish. Best of luck to her and you.
Mike

She is doing well, thank you. Her timing was bad for the surgery, but it corrected the problem.

Ready to go next June.

Now that's a plan. But unfortunately, no.

The company I worked for previously took a pretty hard hit over the last few years and when they rightsized to less than half their previous self, both in numbers of locations and personnel, I got caught up in the cuts.

Since we had just built a home two years earlier, relocating was not an option. So I had to take what I was eying for my "retirement" job 15 years before my SS retirement point. That meant a 35% pay cut, which translates into being glad to escape to salt water once per year, limited toys, and limited domestic trips.

But the trade off is a great work/life balance, no more bleeding ulcers, and after 30 years of working at jobs that paid well, but I didn't like, I'm able to do what I wanted to do when I graduated with my first Masters back in the Stone Age.

Thanks all for the well wishes for my wife. After a hip replacement and spine surgery all within two years, she is finally able to be back to being active as she used to be.