Retired

No surprise, retirement means different things to different people. Whatever your goal in retirement the first thing is always a lot of decisions to make. What to do with that spare time and where to live are the ones most repeated to me. So many of you decided the where to live one was a pretty easy as you already had a beach house and decided to move part time or maybe full time to Puerto Peñasco. Others started looking around and, due to prior personal experience or suggestions from friends or family, decided to check out our little piece of paradise and liked it enough to buy, rent or bring your RV.

What do you do?

Everyone told me how bored I would be and friends couldn’t believe that I was retiring at 59 after often holding two jobs and raising my sons alone after the death of my husband. I’ll let you in on my little secret, I wanted to be bored – I was tired! The idea of doing nothing by the beach sounded like heaven. Well they were right, I can’t do nothing, it is just not in me so I looked around and got involved. If, like me you are looking to help those less fortunate that yourself, there is the monthly free medical clinic (contact through Family of God church), Esperanza para Nueva Vida Community Center, Amores child crisis center, Esperanza children’s home, Casa Hogar for the elderly, Two Fish Ministries providing food in several locations throughout the community, San Peregrino Cancer Support Group, Adopt-a-Student, Adopt-a-Classroom, the Pinata Workshop, Paralympico (Special Olympics), and the Wheel Chair Basketball Team just to name a few. There are events throughout the year supporting these and other worthy efforts and they can always use volunteers. If you don’t know who to contact to get involved, contact me through the Rocky Point Times (rockypointtimes@yahoo.com).

Alone is not Lonely

The other fear constantly expressed to me was that being a widow when I retired and moving to Peñasco was going to result in my being very lonely. Well not so. What I found here was that you can be as busy as you want to be. Don’t let being alone stop you. A great place to start is by joining one of the two singles clubs in town. They both have happy hours, breakfasts and other events. Single or married, stop in at the weekly Connection happy hour. Stop in at the American Legion. Don’t let the term happy hour stop you, drinking isn’t required as many of us have ice tea! You will find the information you need in this paper on the Clubs and Organizations page.

Go and do

So if you find yourself retired here full or part time, it is easy to find so much to do that you can be busier than you were when you worked. Of course not everyone wants to be that busy so they pursue their own hobbies and leisure activities. Peñasco has fishing and all the water sports. We have groups that play darts, dominoes, cards, bingo and bunco, horseshoes. Cholla Bay and Playa Bonita RV Park have continuous organized events and they welcome participants from outside their area. Get the Rocky Point Times and also go to Rocky Point 360 on line and find out what’s happening in town. Another great benefit of living here are the holidays. You will find celebrations for both Mexican and American holidays! There is the Mermaid Market, Bike Week, fishing tournaments, off-road events, environmental wonders such as the Pinacates and the estuaries and all types of exercise programs like zumba, water aerobics and yoga. There are also several gyms in town.

There’s more

I have certainly not named everything you can do in this town or every way that you can help. More of my favorite things are: to attend the ladies fund raising group, Mariposas Sociales, the wonderful Red Hat luncheons and the movies (yes we have movies in English with reasonable ticket and snack bar prices). For me paradise is not complete without food and shopping and we do have some of the best! Not to be forgotten – beach combing, sunset watching and star gazing, again some of the best you will find in this world.

If you are not already retired in Puerto Peñasco or thinking about it – put it on your to-do list.