I continue down Route 66, with only a few bumps in the road. I’m not sure yet what I’ll use to symbolize my 67th year, but 66 was an easy choice. The much less familiar Highway 67, by the way, extends from Sabula, Iowa to Presidio, Texas, with Little Rock and Dallas as the two most notable cities along its not-so-alluring route. Fortunately, I still have eight months to come up with a new theme.

Route 66 safely transported me into 2018, plus I’ve passed through both its starting point in Chicago and terminus in Santa Monica in the past three months. I’ll continue to get “my kicks” up until my 67th birthday. By then, I will have traveled further around the world.

Today officially launches year two of retirement. Year one included 379 blog posts, exceeding my goal of one per day. I hope to maintain this steady pace through 2018. Regardless of whether anyone reads them, it provides a daily outlet for my feelings, opinions, ideas, and plans. If you’ve been following along, you know that I typically start every day with a three mile run. It’s often during that run that my thoughts come together for what I write. Today, my mind was totally focused on the icy, snow-covered path ahead of me and the minus six degree temperature. Thankfully, I will be back in warmer Portland tomorrow, where rain is a much easier challenge than the utter exhaustion I faced trudging through the snow this morning.

My wife finally spent a night in a bed last night, as opposed to the chair next to her hospitalized mother, where she somehow spent the previous five nights. She has to go back to work tomorrow, certainly exhausted from what I’m calling the “holiday from hell.” It was a dreadful combination of costly travel hassles, doctor conferences, healthcare decisions, sleepless nights, and freezing weather. Fortunately, our whole family came together to get through the challenges. It’s what family is for!

One of my stated “Resolutions” is to be more patient, as I nearly “lost it” last night, trying to salvage my always anticipated New Year’s Eve. It’s always been my favorite “holiday” because it typically doesn’t involve relatives, gifting, and other unhappy hassles. However, I found myself delivering Chinese food, requiring a lengthy wait to my 96 year old mother-in-law, and watching her take well over an hour to finally eat it, battling shaky hands and an I.V. tube stuck in her arm. I wanted to shove it down her throat, and tried to encourage her to eat her chow mein and crispy noodles with her hands. She’s too much of a proper lady to do that, and I was an impatient, selfish pig, anxious for my own dinner and some alone time with my wife. Nobody was having a Happy New Year in my world. The ability to wait for something without getting angry or upset was clearly not a virtue with me! Can that improve in 2018?