BLOOMFIELD — Earl Ritter is kind of new to the traveling scene, but he’s definitely been bitten by the travel bug.

Health issues and downsizing from his house to an apartment were the primary focus for several years for this retiree, but in 2005, Ritter enrolled in a 14-day tour that guided him north from South Dakota across the U.S. border and up through the Canadian Rockies. He found the tour company by chance when he was reading through a magazine, but it turned out to be a chance of a lifetime. With the transportation, lodging, schedule and meals provided, he could relax.

“I enjoyed it, I really did. The scenery was beautiful,” Ritter remembers of the trip. “The water [in the mountain lakes] was just so blue you could see all the way down through it. We wore everything from T-shirts to winter coats.”

Ritter has collected memorabilia and souvenirs from his adventures into an album with a chronology in pictures, including the spectacular gardens at The Church of Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah; an arch built of elk antlers in Jackson Hole, Wyo.; the grounds in front of the Calgary Stampede, Canada; and breathtaking views of the mountains, timbers and waters of North America. He enjoyed himself so much he scheduled another trip in 2007, that time to Alaska which included a route through Yellowstone and travel by bus and boat. He chuckled over the photos of towel animals left for him each day by the ship’s housekeeping staff.

Ritter and his late wife, Helen, raised six kids in the Bloomfield area, and both of them worked, Helen as a teacher and Earl for 25 years at Farm Services. In 1969, however, Ritter’s exemplary production at FS earned the two of them their first of nine annual trips. “We got to go to Montreal, Los Angeles, the Panama Canal and Mexico City,” Ritter says.

That first trip was almost waylaid when the school administrator wasn’t sure he would let Helen go on short notice. Ritter laughs about it: “She told them it would be good to tell the kids about,” and so she was given time off.

The Ritters did do a little traveling on family vacations when the kids were younger. After their family had grown and the couple retired, the two of them spent a few years as snowbirds in Florida. Unfortunately, their travel was cut short when Earl was faced with health issues in 2002, and Helen passed away from cancer in 2004. Ritter is grateful for those trips with his wife. “She did not have any pain at all,” he remembers about their last visit south.

Taking his trip in 2006 was a big step for Ritter, who was still healing from the loss of his wife, but he met many wonderful people through the tour and more since then, a few he’s stayed in contact with. With his health in check, Ritter plans to take more trips although he doesn’t have any planned right now. The side effects of the travel bug are pretty strong, but he’s not looking for any antidote.