Hello Team Caffee...
After a successful working life, and trucking career, I am now semi retired, and have been for a few years. I started trucking back in the late 80's in big rigs doing electronics, then trade shows, and switched over to expediting in the 90's. My wife teamed with me much of that time, and we had arrived into trucking after our own careers,(me in sales, and her in financing) and a similar route voiced by you.
QOL was always on our minds before, during, after, and future. I think it's different for everyone, but is encompassed by the word "happiness." In each link of the chain, you are stepping into the shoes of those who had gone before you, and finding your niche. Trucking gave us that, in that we traveled alot, had plenty of time off, nice vacations, enough family time, and made a very nice living.
During our trucking career, we were also planning for the future, and thinking about where we wanted to be when our on the road days were over. We both knew, that when the time came to get off the road, we wanted to live in a warm climate like our home base of Florida. On one of our vacations, we had gone to Cancun, Mexico. That was back in the 90's, and Cancun was on it's way to being what it is today, which is the most popular destination in the western hemisphere.
We went back the following year, and bought some property, and came back to the USA and kept on trucking for several more years. When it came time to go to the house for awhile, instead of going to Florida, we just hopped on a plane and went to Cancun. People would ask us "isn't that expensive?" It really wasn't, as the cost of everything was so much less, and the upkeep of our QOL was less too. We loved south Florida when we lived there, and Cancun was very similar, had a much longer season, and was and still is easy to get to, being just another hour across the gulf.
QOL is still at the top of our agenda, and even more so today. Now days we are still south of the border, and I occasionally do a little trucking just for the fun of it, but mostly we do QOL pursuits. I'm as busy as I want to be these days, doing nothing that I can't put down. One of the things I do now is help older people move on to their next adventure, as I now speak spanish, and many of them don't. Many like me, came here, and started doing something in tourism, that added to their QOL, like buying property, building a beach villa, and renting it for vacations, while they traveled, or went back home to visit to the USA, Canada, or Europe. Others open a dive shop, or something. However, people get older and just can't handle the day to day anymore as the years go on. So these turnkey places go up for grabs, more than pay for themselves, and provide this style of QOL for the next person.
It gives me great satisfaction to see the new ones come in, and go down the same path. I don't do it for money. I just helped an Minnesota ex bed bugger to get into a place.He and his family are snowbirds and rent while not here. He still does a little summer trucking and I still threaten to go with him. That's QOL for me these days. If there are any of my trucking comrades out there who like the tropics, let me know, and I'll keep an eye out. QOL IS IMPORTANT!
