"I just felt like I needed to sort of had a little time on our own so I have been gone for two or three weeks but I am back in the saddle again now. I am just learning to live all over again," Petty said Friday at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway.
Petty's typically busy schedule returned to some normalcy this week, with appearances on Monday in Georgia, Tuesday in Tennessee and Wednesday in Wyoming. "The busier they keep me the better off I will be," he said.
Petty said his life now will be different.
"After 55 years I have to start all over again. I was fortunate that all the kids came home for Easter. We had all the kids and grand kids home and that really made things work good," he said.
"It is great that so many people knew Lynda so well. Of course she had been around a long time, too. She never met a stranger. Every once in awhile I would come in the house and see people I didn’t even know. She would invite them in the house to spend the night or whatever. Again, it is just going to be different."
