on the southeast corner of South Carolina is Hunting Island state park on the Atlantic coast.  At this park you can camp, swim in the ocean, cycle the trails and roads, hike, and climb the lighthouse.  You always hear birds as it is a very wooded park. I rode my mountain bike on a tough trail to the lighthouse.  This is a well maintained lighthouse, built in 1873 and moved in 1889 due to erosion.  In 1889 they moved it a quarter mile.  Today it less than a 100 yards away from the beach. It has 167 steps and is 132 ft tall.  It was very windy on the top, good thing I didn't have a hat on.  Original storage buildings serve as museums.  After riding more trails and roads I walked far in each direction on the beach.  One section of the beach was being eroded badly, the surf pulling sand from under trees and the trees falling over becoming driftwood.  Some campsites next to the beach will be gone very soon as the ocean takes land but adds to it 200 yards away.

p4    Now with children grown, married, and on their own, I have more time to stay in shape cycling, exercising, and working in the garden.  Combine that with staying away from sugar and saturated fats, hard to do sometimes, and maybe my old age can be spent doing better things than going to the doctor.
    Before I plan and then go on trips, I have to get my yard ready for the caterpillars.  That is right, you can get caterpillars and butterflies unless you are ready.  To have wildlife in your yard you have to create a landscape for them.  Grass doesn't benefit wildlife, so the less you have the better.  As I write this, the birds are making a lot of noise outside, as there a lot of trees in my yard and the neighborhood.  Bird feeders and berry bushes help them to decide on my trees for them to make nests.  Squirrels are numerous because of the trees and you can usually see one looking out a hole in the trunk of one tree. 
    I have many butterflies flying around as I write this.  You have to be careful to select the right landscape plants in order to see butterflies in your yard.  You must first have plants whose leaves the caterpillar eats.  For example, a monarch  caterpillar eats only milkweed leaves.  A sulphur prefers a cassia tree leaf.  A zebra prefers passionvine leaves.  Swallowtails like citrus leaves.  So if you want to see butterflies, you have to have leaves that the caterpillar prefers.  Flowering nectar plants that butterflies like are lantana, penta, passionvine, plumbago, firebush, firecracker, honeysuckle, and many others.

p3   Georgia has 2 lighthouses the public can climb.  Tybee Island lighthouse is located near Savannah.  It was built in 1867 and is 154ft tall.  Painted black on the bottom and top with white in the middle, it also has a museum in the keepers house.
   The St Simons Island Lighthouse is located near Brunswick and was built in 1872.  The 104 foot lighthouse is white and its keepers house is a museum.  Now that I have clibed these two Georgia lighthouses I can keep going up the coast to the Carolinas , Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey.
    One goal is to climb any lighthouse along the eastern coast that the public is allowed to climb.  Luckily the information as to which ones are accessible is easily attainable on the website friendsoflighthouses.com.  finding nearby campgrounds and trails can make for a fun trip.
    In central Florida we are very fortunate to have many cycling trails.  Only a few miles from my house I can catch a trail and ride for hours.  I can also catch a club ride any weekend and ride along with a group.  Occasionally there is a charity ride locally that you can sign up for.  There is an entry fee, but you get snacks before starting, sag stops every 20 miles, usually a t-shirt, and usually fed at the end of the ride.  You get a choice of distances to go.  I usually do the metric 100 (62 miles).  The largest rid the  Horrible Hundred held annually in November for over 30 years.  It goes through the hills of Clermont.  The last several years the event has had over 2,000 riders.  The Mt Dora Bicycle Festival has also been held for over 30 years in October.  It is a three day event with several rides each day to chose from.

I have always wanted to travel more, sightsee more, and cycle more, but one gets busy raising a family and time and money can not be spared. so the time usually comes when you are older.  Cycling from one town to another like my friend did is expensive even though there is not a gas expense.  Therefore I thought I'd do cycling loops.  Instead of going for months only with the bike, go to a location with a camper, then spend time cycling to various directions to sightsee each day.  One can move from one location to another every couple of days. The camper would save money with no hotel and no restaurants.
     To do this I would have to budget very carefully and save where I could.  The budget would be effected on whether my wife was with me or not.  Being she is younger than me, at first the trips would be solo until in a few years she retires and joins me. Gas, campsites and sightseeing, should be the only expenses.  Food will not be an extra expense as I will be eating only what I would get at a grocery store, just like at home. In the spirit of budgeting, a truck pulling a rv trailer is more economical than a self powered rv.  The truck will be the everyday vehicle when you're not traveling, whereas an rv motorhome would require another vehicle.
   Besides biking, I hope to climb any lighthouse that the public is allowed to.  You're still not old if you can climb a 200 foot lighthouse and not drop dead of a heart attack.  So if I can still climb at say 70, I'll know I'm somewhat healthy.  In recent year I have climbed several lighthouses in Florida and Georgia.
   The Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse is one of the most complete light stations in the nation with all of the original buildings intact which now house museums.  Built in 1887 it is located just south of  Daytona Beach and is 175 feet tall making it the tallest in Florida.  This red brick lighthouse is still active and the public can climb it.
   Nearby is the St Augustine lighthouse, north of Daytona Beach.  Built in 1874 it is 167 feet tall and has black and white spiral stripes.  It is still active and the public can climb it.  It too has a museum.  Lighthouses are painted different colors or patterns so they can be identified by passing ships.
   North of West Palm Beach is the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse, built in 1860 and is 105 feet tall.  The public can climb the red brick lighthouse which also has a museum.
   Near Miami the Cape Florida lighthouse was built in 1846, which I've climbed a couple times when visiting relatives.  It is 95 feet tall and is still active.  The public can climb the white lighthouse and tour its museum.
   I have climbed the Pensacola lighthouse several times as my daughter lives nearby.  It is located on the Naval Base near old Fort Barrancas and the Naval Air Museum.  It was built in 1859 and is 150 feet tall.  It is still active and is painted white on the lower 1/3 and black on the upper 2/3.  It has a museum and from the top of the tower you can see the navy base, forts, and air museum as well as the gulf coast.  At the forts you can take a park ranger tour.  You get to see Navy jets flying around, sometimes the Blue Angels.
   The most unique story of lighthouses is the St George Island Lighthouse.  Due to storms the lighthouse eventually fell into the gulf in the late 1990s.  The town used the bricks and rebuilt further back from the beach and rebuilt the keepers house.  Today the public can climb the white 75 foot lighthouse. These lighthouses in Florida that I have climbed were well built and the job of the lightkeeper was a hard one as in the 1800s the keeper had to lug oil or kerosene up all the steps every day to light the light by dark. The Fresnel lenses enabled the light to be seen from many miles.  The lighthouses were not electrified until the early 1900s.

   When I was in my 20s in the late 70s living in central Florida, I cycled weekly with a group of cyclists with my 10 speed Schwinn Traveler.  There were many tree covered roads through rolling small hills to ride with little worry of traffic.  The group varied in ages from those in their 20s to retired men.  One Sunday we rode to Blue Springs State Park where the wife and relatives of our oldest cyclist were waiting to surprise him with birthday cake and a barbeque to celebrate his 80th birthday.  He was our slowest cyclist, but at 80 it was to be expected.  To a 29 year old that was impressive.  In fact of all the cyclist who rode with us, I was most impressed with the older men.  Most times when we rode, at some point in the ride we would split up into two groups.  The faster riders would go for a longer distance at a faster pace.  The slower riders would go a slower pace and shorter distance.
   One man in his late 60s was a former engineer for the state dept. of transportation.  Four years earlier he got on his Schwinn 10 speed and rode around most of the country.  Up the east coast to upstate New York, then across to Chicago he pedaled.  While in Chicago he stopped at the Schwinn factory for a tour.  While there he asked if they sold parts there at the factory so he could replace something on his bike, or did he have to go to a nearby store. They told him not to worry about it and take the tour.  When he finished the tour, the part had been replaced and the bike had new tires and tubes and chain.  They told him there was no charge and took pictures of a happy cyclist.
   I asked my friend where he slept along the way. He  said he stayed at a cheap motel each night. He had saddle bags over each side of the rear wheel with a sleeping bag across the top.  If it was too far between towns on the small country roads he was using, he would sleep in the sleeping bag in a field.  He would average about 50to 75 miles a day.  But it was expensive, with eating at restaurants and staying at motels most nights, so when he got through Iowa, he turned south and headed to Texas, then east from there back to Florida.  Of he didn't have an expense for gas.
   The older cyclists I met all had a philosophy about a healthy life. ---  It is everyone's responsibility to their family and themselves to maintain healthy habits so as not to be a sickly burden in their older
years.  These cyclists didn't smoke, weren't overweight, and were active, whether it be cycling, playing tennis, hiking, etc.  They all had fun and always on the move. I've always tried to mimic this.