DEVELOPING THE BUCKET LIST

The more we travel, the more like-minded people we meet. We really enjoy trading stories with others and found that we were adding adventures to our “bucket list” faster than we were knocking them off!

As detailed in my book, “Second Chances – Finding Love and Adventure in the Second Half of our Lives,” our business continued to thrive and we struck a wonderful balance of being able to stay engaged in our meaningful work and indulging in our wanderlust and love for travel. We attribute our business success to our belief that the clarity breaks we have when we’re away help us to lead our enterprise and challenge our managers. We had several opportunities to add territories and expand the reach of our home care and medical staffing operations, and we built a second assisted living - memory care community. The expansion allowed us to create more opportunities within our management team, and further elevated our responsibilities out of the day-to-day and into the director / visionary role. While we have a lot of friends that are retiring from their life-long work and careers, we feel so blessed to be able to continue to be part of something that not only provides such a needed service for seniors and their families, but provides challenging and rewarding careers to our team.

Beginning in 2014, we started integrating Jeff’s son Ryan into our leadership group. Even before he knew a lot about the day-to-day functioning of our business, our leadership team said it gave them peace of mind to have Ryan’s presence when we were off on our adventures. In early 2020, he formally became an owner and BrightStar Franchisee, and he has gained great respect with the team. Besides serving as our comptroller, he's become our enterprise guide for leading effective meetings and setting strategic goals and plans.

Since 2015, we’ve managed to eek about 13 weeks out of the office each year. Sometimes that’s two weeks of a big adventure, sometimes that’s traveling to a board meeting and throwing an adventure in on the side. There are so many more stories than there is space to tell them, but I’ve tried to record most of them to share on this website.

So what's on the list? Its probably the question we're asked most frequently, although, those conversations typically lead to adding more things to the list! My list has both travel and life (hobby) experiences - here it is:

• Bali / Tahiti - beach

• Caribbean - sailing

• Complete the Northern Tier Adventure Cycling Route (Wisconsin to Maine)

• Appalachian Trail - thru hike

• Grand Canyon - raft

• Galapagos Island - cruise Silver Sea (maybe to Easter island)

• South Africa - tour (Tauck)

• Transatlantic Cruise

• Mediterranean Small Boat Cruise

• Greece - bike / hike

• Danube River - cruise / bike

• Ireland - trek

• Pacific Coast - bike

• Alaska Cruise - small boat with kayak options

• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - tour

• England Coast to Coast - trek

• Tour du Mont Blanc - National Geographic trek

• El Camino do Santiago - trek

• Iceland - tour / trek

• Japan - bike / trek

• West Coast Trail - hike

• Ride the Rockies - bike

• Vietnam - SE Asia - bike / tour

• Canadian Rockies by Rail - tour / hike

• White Mountains - hut to hut trek mainehuts.org

• Banff - hike

• Hot Springs Montana (Yellowstone) - soak

• 46 High Peaks - Adirondack - hike

• High Sierra Trail - hike

• The "W" Patagonia - trek

• Learn to play the guitar

• Learn to knit

• Regular Habitat for Humanity gig

• Additional Volunteer in Mission trips (United Methodist Church)