Happy New Year!
There isn’t anything profound or radical or even very thought-provoking tonight (it’s 7:45 PM MST as I’m writing this), but I wanted to take a few of the remaining minutes of 2015 to say Thank You to my readers. Whether you’re crazy enough to follow me, or you’ve simply stumbled across The Peripatetic Traveler by random chance, you have become a part of my universe.
According to the WordPress “annual report,” the top five referring sites are:
- facebook.com
- WordPress.com Reader
- bilbosrandomthoughts.blogspot.com
- gonzodave001.wordpress.com
- bilbosrandomthoughts.blogspot.de
#1 makes a lot of sense, since I crosspost there. #2, I guess, is the “random” source – when you click “next blog” that’s where I show up. #3 is a longtime blog of my longtime friend, Bilbo. He’s been doing this since before the Interwebz existed, I think, and has his own worldwide following. #4 is my other blog, “From The Ground Up,” where I’m chronicling the build of my 6-wheel-drive JeepMonster.
Number Five is the oddest one, because it’s a derivative of #3, aimed (I guess) at Bilbo’s many followers in Germany, although it’s in English. Since he spent a good part of his adult life over there, and speaks German fluently (?), I would have thought he’d make a German-language blog. (Maybe he’ll be good enough to ‘splain in a comment.)
Also according to the report, y’all hail from 53 countries! I’m quite impressed! The US is first, of course, but I had double-digit (between 10 and 99) views from Germany (42), Canada (36), France (28), United Kingdom (21), Australia (17), Italy (10), and Mongolia (10) (*MONGOLIA*?!?).
In return, I have found some awesome other blogs that I follow (although I confess that I don’t always read them). Among these are “Plying Through Life,” “Girly Camping,” “Smokey the Jeep,” and “IHRA” (International Historical Research Associates).
I’ve had some amazing travels this year, and enjoyed blogging about them. I hope you have enjoyed reading my posts and that you’ll come back in 2016 for more adventures. Right now, the only trip I *know* I’m taking will be back to Penn State in April for the 65th Anniversary reunion of the AFROTC Drill Team & Honor Guard. I’m considering a couple of other possibilities, such as completing Historic Route 66 (from Holbrook, AZ to Los Angeles – I rode from Holbrook to Chicago last summer) and then continuing up the Pacific Coast Highway on the Honda, or maybe riding cross-country to attend the Laconia Bike Week in New Hampshire (but I also might wait a couple of years and go to the 95th Bike Week in 2018). If things work out with the JeepMonster, I might get that up and running, too, and then I’ll have more hair-raising adventures to blog about!
However you look at it, 2015 was an … interesting … year. 2016 promises to be more of the same – and it’s longer, too, since it’s a Leap Year! So, although I doubt I’ll be the first, let me wish each of you, Dear Readers, a Happy New Year!
The Peripatetic Traveler 
Yay, love you dad!
Love you, too!