It is one month until my birthday, and my tradition is that I start my new goals for the next year on my birthday, so I am starting to write them now. Many of my goals are the same as previous goals. I don’t really need to write them down as a goal because they are an established habit with me now after all the years of doing them, but I use my goals as an example as I teach goal setting to others, so I include them. I will have 76 goals this year because that is how old I will be on October 27th. But after I get them all written, I will make a condensed version of about 40 goals that will be a challenge to accomplish, and I will read them every day to help keep up my motivation to pursue them. For the next month, I will pray and think about what should be included and which ones I probably ought not to pursue. Some of them I will write down, and then in a couple of days, I will take them off and then put them back on again

One of those “on again – off again” goals is a bicycle trip to Alaska. Last year’s trip didn’t go very well, but I know why and could make some adjustments. I know that physically, I am either past doing this kind of thing or close to it. It would undoubtedly be easier not to do this. But I would like to make one more trip, and Alaska was my first bicycle trip. I would make 60 miles the maximum number of miles per day we would ride, we would have a support vehicle, and I don’t want to be gone for more than 35 days. From my house to Fairbanks, it is 2500 miles, so we would need to pick and choose what sections we would bike and what sections we would drive. We could drive 1,000 miles from our house into British Colombia in two days, take 25 days to ride 1500 miles to Fairbanks, rest a day with our daughter Shelly’s family, and then take five days to drive home. Or we could bike five days from our house, ride 500 miles in one day, bike for five days, ride in the rig a day, and then bicycle again, keeping up that pattern to Fairbanks, and then do the same all the way home, taking a different route. That would be seven days driving in the support vehicle for 3500 miles and 25 days riding bicycles for 1,500 miles. However we do it, I think it is a goal I can accomplish. It would be a challenge but fun and beautiful.

So, I need a support vehicle and a driver. I think my brother, Cliff, and his wife, Kathy, will ride with me; anyone else? If interested, let me know.