In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, it's not uncommon to feel that in the blink of an eye, your children are grown and moving on with their lives. The active phase of parenting is over, and it's time to think seriously about the next step in your own life–retirement.
To escape this hustle and bustle, if only briefly, my son and I recently visited Mount Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine, located in Baxter State Park. Some background on this spectacular piece of natural history–after several attempts by Governor Percival Baxter to persuade the Maine legislature to buy the mountain, the state ultimately refused to appropriate the money. As a result, in the 1930s, Governor Percival Baxter began to acquire the land personally and finally deeded more than 200,000 acres to the state of Maine for a park, named in his honor. The generosity of Governor Baxter's legacy planning created the opportunity for people to climb Mount Katahdin, which happens to be the northern termination point of the Appalachian Trail.
Big climbs for parents
In life we spend a great deal of time climbing the mountain of raising our children, funding their educations and just being involved–the types of things every parent should be very proud of. However, when we reach the top of that mountain, and it's time to travel back down the other side to the retirement distribution phase of life, it's interesting to find that most of the missteps happen not on the way up, as one might assume, but rather on the way down.
