It’s not just the miles. It’s also traveling through unfamiliar territory.

Such is life in the second half.

A California girlfriend called tonight. She and her husband have bought a home in a retirement community. That’s actually a little misleading, because today they’re called “active adult communities” for the 55+ crowd and offer some lovely single family homes at attractive prices.

Of course, they are usually on the fringe of bigger cities and not in them.

My friends plan to transition into their new place over the next year or two.

While our initial knee-jerk reaction was that it didn’t seem attractive, we stopped and thought about it.

Reality check: We are in our senior years, with no kids. We’ve been looking at homes more expensive than those in these communities, but really, we’d rather buy less house.

And while being on the outskirts of the SF Bay area doesn’t thrill me, there are some nice advantages to being in an active adult community.

The prospect of an instant social group is attractive, since in retirement we no longer have access to friends made at work. A fitness center, conveniently located. Nature trails. A restaurant. And no need to be tied down to it.

We’ve put the idea on the table and after we move to our rental home, we’ll start investigating it. Who knows? We might like what we see.

We’re open.