I’m starting the new year by flipping to the first page of this year’s inspirational gift calendar: 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz. I’m going to make this the theme for year 67 of my life, just as I often referred to Route 66 for year sixty-six. I’ve done a relatively modest amount of travel compared to some of my friends, and have a long way to go to catch up.

The first page of the calendar is Kauai, Hawaii, an island that I haven’t yet visited. We’ve been to the Big Island, O’ahu, and Maui, but not to the Jurassic Park-like Na Pali Cliffs of Hawaii’s last true wilderness. It’s on the bucket list, but this year’s trip to the islands is another return to Maui for an auto dealers convention that my wife is attending. The rest of the week ahead includes the Acropolis of Athens, Whistler Blackcomb Ski Resort, Machu Picchu, and Germany’s Cologne Cathedral. I’ve skied Whistler with friends and visited Athens as part of a Viking cruise last spring. Of these five glorious destinations highlighted on the calendar in week one, I’ve only been to two. It looks like I have a lot of living to do before I die.

Today we’ll have a traditional New England boiled dinner to bring in the new year – short-ribs, cabbage, and carrots without the potatoes that violate our “white diet.” For some, it’s also a meal served on St. Patrick’s Day, and known as a Jiggs dinner in Newfoundland. My wife has prepared it for most of the first day’s of the year we’ve brought in as a couple since 2000. We went to Holdfast for last night’s countdown, but she also made us crab legs the night before. It reminded me of the way we brought in the Millennium, our first New Year’s celebration together, with a trip to the Emergency Room. She had accidentally sliced her fingers cutting the crab legs for our special dinner with her two girls, and under heavy sedation when the clock struck midnight.

I’ve spent memorable New Year’s on the ski slopes, Saugatuck, doing a Polar Plunge, in Vegas, on Beale Street, in fancy restaurants, on the beach, at an Austin fireworks show, and in New Orleans, to name a few. One year we dealt with a flooded basement, and last year spent most of the evening alongside my wife at her mother’s hospital bedside. Two of our twenty have sadly been in a hospital. Our dining experiences have included Chez Jean (2), Adam’s Fine Food, The Pidge, Oceanaire, Montgomery’s, Wink, Uchiko, Eddie’s Steak Shack, Jezebel, Castagna, Murphy’s Steakhouse take out, and Holdfast, if memory and diary serves correctly. We are usually just getting back home after an exhausting trip back to Indiana every year, so our last evening of the year tends to be somewhat laid-back. Last night was no exception, as we both were in bed well before midnight, and no closer to visiting these 1,000 desirable destinations.