Next Year

OK, this year is, from the JDRF point of view, over. We had our end-of-the-year group party Saturday evening at the West Michigan chapter director's house, ate too much, looked at pictures from both Asheville and Death Valley, talked about the differences between the two rides, and, most importantly, signed up for 2006.

2006 will be different - we're going to concentrate on getting the biggest possible group to go to Death Valley in late October, so I'll be in the hot, gray-and-tan desert rather than the cool, lush, green Appalachians. I can't very well have a blog called Asheville2005 for a ride in Death Valley in 2006, so the new, more general-purpose blog will be Riding to Cure Diabetes.

We're also going to try to get my wife to come along as a volunteer, with her big camera, to get great pictures and give us water and yell and hoot and help with whatever needs helping with.

The fundraising goal for me is, again, $3500; we'll need to add another few hundred dollars to cover Kirsten coming along as well, so let's call it $4000. For Asheville, I raised $2570, so it seems I've got my work cut out for me. Of course, I didn't really put any effort into fundraising until early September this year, and I'm a lot more pumped now that I understand what I'm raising money for, both in terms of the cause and the ride itself.

Another goal is to have 50 people come along associated with the West Michigan chapter; note that you don't have to live in West Michigan (or in Michigan at all, for that matter) to sign up with our chapter, so if you read this, and you're interested, shoot me an email. From here on out, though, read over at the Riding blog!

Now to just get through winter...