Learning. Why should we want to learn anything new? Well, other than how to enjoy retired life that is. But learn we have and over the past year, we have learned A LOT!

To begin, we took Spanish lessons in preparation for spending 3 months in Mexico and Cuba. Our extremely rudimentary Spanish slowly improved while we were there, thanks to the wonderful and patient people of these two beautiful countries. But it was hard. And exhausting. We were living in a place where we rarely heard English and in the beginning it was just overwhelming. It really made me understand how hard it was for so many of my students to come to Canada and be dumped into my classroom for 6 hours a day without knowing any English at all. For many of them at least, they had friends who were from the same country and so had someone to chat with throughout the day. Someone who they could count on to translate and ease their way into an English speaking world. But there was one student I particularly remember. She had come from Saudi Arabia and had no English at all, neither were there any students who spoke her language. How terrifying it must have been for her! She was very sweet and very quiet for much of the year, but by the end of our time together, she had mastered enough English to make her basic needs understood. This is how we felt at the end of our journey. We had the most basic Spanish speaking skills, but we could find our way and it was a very satisfying feeling to know we had accomplished that much. Of course, now that we are home again, we don’t speak Spanish, nor do we hear it, so most of that hard earned learning has gone out the window. But hopefully it will return to us when next we visit one of these countries.

As I worked on the blog, Jim was doing some learning of his own. He worked on the design of our van build (using many helpful Youtube examples!) and built it with his brother. He has also been planning our upcoming tour by finding wonderful places for us to cycle as we cross Canada and the US in our van. The plan is to drive, park the van and cycle out and back. Some bike trips will be short (1-2 days) and others will be over 5 days or more. We are excited about this opportunity, but it has taken a lot of planning on his part.

Most recently, we have both had to really get our heads into the books to take the Basic Drone Pilot exam that is now required in Canada to fly a drone. We purchased our new toy (also much learning involved) with this upcoming trip in mind.

We want to be able to create some great videos to promote the many beautiful trails we will be riding on. In order to pass the test, Transport Canada lays out an incredible amount of knowledge that one must have in order to pass their test. We both studied hard and passed our test – yay! Now we are free to fly (the in places we are allowed, of course).

So learning. Yep, its important. Important for us to continue to grow and do the new things we want to do. But there is another benefit that goes along with learning and that is the production of brain cells. I have always heard that as we age our brains slow down in the production of brain cells. But a new study points to the continuing development of brain cells well into old age http://‪https://reut.rs/2HmU6o5‬ . As well, in this article, they discuss the importance of an active lifestyle in maintaining healthy blood cells which help retain elasticity in brain cells (the ability to change and respond to new situations). So, our lifestyle of cycling regularly while also travelling to new places and learning new things is hopefully contributing to healthier brains for us both – a win win! While our particular lifestyle might not suite you, you can still take away from this how important it is to keep on learning, no matter how old you are!