We’re halfway through our sixth year on the road. When we started this journey, I told Donna it wasn’t an endless vacation, it’s a lifestyle. She responded with, “So we’ll still take vacations, right?” Well, she had me there. In reality, we’ve had many mini-vacations on the road. Like when we stayed at East Glacier or West Yellowstone or destinations like Nashville and countless other places where we played the tourist role.

Last week, I thought maybe it was time to change things up. I surprised Donna by suggesting a cruise or tropical resort. We spent a day or so looking things over on the Internet and made a decision. We’ve booked a week at the Costa Blu Resort on Ambergris Caye (pronounced am-BERG-ris Key) near San Pedro, Belize. We plan to travel there from San Diego in April. The flights to Belize from the West Coast aren’t easy. We’ll have to go from San Diego to Miami, then to Belize City. From there we can take a taxi to the port and a boat to San Pedro where we’ll rent a gasoline-powered four-seat golf cart for transportation to Costa Blu – about 6.5 miles from town. We’re looking forward to it and it should provide plenty of fodder for a future travel post.

Donna and I played in a pickleball tournament here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort on Saturday. Donna played in the 3.0 bracket while I played in the 3.5. The format was seven games of round-robin play, then the players were ranked by the number of games won and total points scored. The top four players were matched up in the finals to play for first and second place. The next four faced each other in a semi-final to determine the bronze medal winners. I ended up in the semi-final with five wins and 67 points scored, but we lost the semi-final round. Donna also made the semi-final in the 3.0 bracket and won the third step on the podium. It was a fun tournament and I’m looking forward to playing in another next month.

The weather last week was pleasant with highs in the upper 60s to low 70s. I usually go to Lucky Lou’s for cold one at happy hour on Thursday and Donna joins me on Friday when we meet several of our friends there. Mike Hall and I puff a cigar out on the patio and swap lies over a cold beer or two.

Of course, Donna keeps me well-fed as usual. A couple of examples of RV cooking from last week are a plate of grilled turkey breast served with sweet potato spinach hash and grilled peppers, onions and asparagus.

After the tournament on Saturday, Donna went to the grocery store and found New York strip steaks on sale, so she grilled steak Saturday night and served it with a baked potato and grilled bok choy with shishito peppers.

On Sunday, Donna hiked the Pass Mountain trail at Usery Regional Park with her friend, Beth Welch. They hiked about 7.5 miles and had some great views. I watched the NFL playoffs and wondered why at the end of the day. The officiating was so poor in the playoffs, I have to wonder if something rotten is going on.

The weather for the week ahead looks great – mostly clear skies, sunshine and moderate temperatures with the daily highs continuing to reach the high 60s and low 70s.