The Retirement Dream and the Waking Nightmare

Assuming I remain employed for the next 15 years and climate change hasn't quite destroyed civilization yet, I plan to retire at 65. Having now seen most of Canada, here's my short list of retirement possibilities:

Vancouver Island
Prince Edward Island
St. John's (or somewhere on the Avalon peninsula)
Some little hamlet in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia

All of these places offer natural beauty, lovely people, plentiful entertainment and relaxation opportunities, better weather than the Prairies, and proximity to larger cities should the desire for metropolitan experiences ever hit.

In all honesty, though, these feel like fantasies. For some time now I've felt a sense of impending economic doom on a personal level, perhaps because I feel like I've used up all the luck I have to get to where I am now. I've often told people how incredibly fortunate I feel to have enjoyed a comfortable living for the last couple of decades, but during that time I've survived several layoffs and I can't help but feel that eventually my number will come up. Sylvia and I have planned carefully enough that we should be able to avoid homelessness, but the pace of technological change, climate change impacts, and potentially catastrophic political upheaval over the next couple of decades make the future extremely uncertain.

I'm very aware that I live a life of incredible privilege compared to 95 percent of the world, and it feels incredibly selfish to worry about our personal destiny when the fate of billions is at stake.

I wish I had more of Sylvia's confidence that everything will be okay.  But I find it hard to be consistently optimistic.

On the other hand, there's always a chance that the forces of good will triumph over the sociopaths, or that the singularity will come and solve all our problems by means unimagined. Here's hoping...

Earl of Green Gables, Day 14: The Penultimate Day

We bid a sad farewell to Charlottetown this day, with a sad dearth of photos of the quaint architecture. This apartment building was pretty striking, and  snapped a shot with my SLR, but most of my Charlottetown images are captured on my GoPro. I'll strip the footage for stills at a later date.

For this, our final night in Atlantic Canada, we stayed in the cheapest hotel at the Halifax airport we could find. The room was...old, but the restaurantès food was surprisingly good.

For example, this gingerbread cake was excellent. 

Earl of Green Gables, Day 13: Points East and Cavendish

We started our day with a short drive to the eastern shore of Prince Edward Island, stopping in this potato field because a bee flew in through the sun roof and landed in my lap.

The red sand of Prince Edward Island is quite arresting. This is a beach at Souris.

This is the lighthouse at Souris.

A view of part of Souris from the lighthouse.

Obligatory lighthouse selfie.

And here's the East Point Lighthouse, located at the eastern tip of the island.

Another obligatory lighthouse selfie.

We then headed northwest, seeking Anne of Green Gables. Signs like this led us there.

We made it! This is the homestead where Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote Anne of Green Gables.

Earl of Green Gables, Day 12: Day of Rest

On this day, Sylvia and I really needed a break from the constant driving, so we spent most of the day lounging in or around our hotel room.

I really didn't have a solid grasp of the immense size of cruise ships until I saw a few up close this trip. 

Earl of Green Gables, Day 11: Charlottetown Shuffle

Prince Edward Island is simply gorgeous, as is its charming capital, Charlottetown. We splurged on a fancy seaside hotel, and the views and the amenities were so very worth it.

For some reason, the hotel upgraded us to a seaside-view room. You wouldn't think that makes a huge difference, but boy, was it cool to relax on the recliner and watch cruise ships come in.

Cows serves astounding ice cream.

Island on the Sea of Nowhere

This one's a little busy, but there are elements I like: the oversized initial capital spilling into the banner, the gloss of the title itself. Maybe this cover would work better without the skull and crossbones motif.