Tomorrow, I fire up my Harley and leave La Quinta for the last time.

I’ll be on the road nearly three weeks. It’ll be my tenth major ride in nine years.

Vroom!

But this year is different. Way different.

This year’s journey is a bucket list ride.

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As almost everyone who hasn’t lived under a rock in recent years knows, a bucket list is a catalog of goals to achieve, dreams to fulfill and life experiences to have – before you die. It’s a way of thinking about what’s really important in your life. Stuff you want to do, before you, um, kick the bucket.

For you non-native English speakers, or otherwise curious readers of this blog, here’s some helpful etymology on that nonsensical idiom, kick the bucket.

We Baby Boomers (I was born in 1950) are entering a stage of life when bucket lists are becoming increasingly common and familiar. There are nearly 75 million of us Boomers. That’s a lot of bucket lists.

Who among us hasn’t given some thought to setting an impossible goal and then actually achieving it? Or, failing miserably, but at least trying.

The term “bucket list” was popularized and brought front and center to the American consciousness by the 2007 film, The Bucket List.

The movie features Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, as two terminally ill cancer patients who decide to break out of the hospital and live their last days to the fullest.

As they work through their bucket list, Nicholson and Freeman play poker in Monte Carlo, fly over the North Pole, visit the Taj Mahal and Great Pyramids of Egypt, race cars, skydive, go on a safari in Tanzania, and ride motorcycles on the Great Wall of China.

I’ll tell you right now that my 2017 Harley trip, which begins tomorrow, doesn’t include the Great Wall. But we may stop along the way for Chinese food.

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Movie critics, almost all of them, panned The Bucket List.

Said Roger Ebert, who later died from cancer: “The Bucket List is a movie about two old codgers who are nothing like people, both suffering from cancer that is nothing like cancer, and setting off on adventures that are nothing like possible.”

The New York Times called it “preposterous.”

The London Telegraph described it as “dire, soulless, sappy and bullyingly manipulative.”

The San Francisco Chronicle labeled it “medically and emotionally false … full of bone-deep dishonesty.”

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And yet, The Bucket List resonated with millions of us, ill and healthy.

It’s about living intentionally, and with purpose.

Despite the naysaying critics, film audiences loved it, to the tune of $175 million at the box office.

The Bucket List spawned a wealth of websites, encouraging development of bucket lists, even teaching you how to create your own. One of them, bucketlist.org, claims to have more than three million bucket list ideas – among them “unplug for 48 hours,” “experience zero gravity,” “cover someone’s car in Post-it notes,” and “cross the intersection at Abbey Road.”

Got any ideas?

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In the movie, auto mechanic Carter Chambers (played by actor Morgan Freeman) was 66 years old when his bucket list adventure began.

I was 66 last year, when I began planning this trip. Like many of you, I can relate to Chambers’ view of getting things done, while there’s still time. That’s why I’m going on this trip now, rather than, say, sometime down the road. Or, perhaps never.

I do not have an incurable disease. This blog would have been a dramatic and tempting way to share my impending doom. But I’m fine.

All things considered, I am reasonably healthy and still have decent brain function. I’m pretty sure both of those claims are accurate and verifiable — and would pass the scrutiny of most fact-checking operations.

Full Disclosure: In March of this year, during a routine visit, my dermatologist found four areas on my torso that didn’t look right to her. She scraped four tissue samples, and sent them to a lab for analysis.

Three came back negative, or “clear.”

One did not.

The result: on April 24, a surgical oncologist at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage hacked a hunk of malignant melanoma from my back and three lymph nodes from my left armpit. With his help, I’m pretty sure we kicked cancer in the teeth.

I’ll be seeing a dermatologist every three months for the next five years, just to be on the safe side. But all things considered, I’m as good as new.

And, not to be overly dramatic, but I’m feeling lucky to be alive.

***

Oddly enough, I don’t have a bucket list.

If I did, it would include riding my Harley to Sturgis.

Sometime tomorrow, I saddle up and begin the long trek to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, an annual event that draws a half-million bikers like me to the Black Hills of South Dakota.

It’s not clear to me what I’m looking for – though I’ll let you know if I find it – as I embark on the ride of a lifetime.

My daily blog posts (Riding With Gary: All Vroom, All the Time) begin tomorrow. You can look for them every night around dinner time, depending on your time zone, and my sometimes-spotty Wi-Fi connection.

As I like to say every year on the eve of my departure – and I mean this – glad to have you along for the ride. Over the next few weeks, I hope this blog inspires a few of you to think about what’s really important in your life.

And now, a sneak peak of what’s ahead. My 2017 adventure, in 65 words or less:

Four thousand miles. Nineteen days. Eighteen National Parks, Monuments and Memorials. Nine states. Riding below sea level and over 12,000-foot mountain passes. Seeing bison, bear and elk along the road, and hoping their presence doesn’t cause me to soil myself. Watching erupting geysers, and exploring damp, dark caves. Burning in 110-degree heat, and shivering in freezing cold.

Best of all: enjoying it with great friends!

***

Dream big. Live large.

What’s on your bucket list?

Vroom, vroom!

***

P.S. You are reading the first of 20 entries on this year’s blog. The route is full of new destinations, and I have a lot to say. I’m not being paid by the word, though that is a tempting business model that would enrich me handsomely.

I look forward to having you along with me, riding in my “digital sidecar” over the next few weeks — and I welcome your feedback. Feel free to comment on the photos, the route, the writing, my choice of riding partners – whatever. You can enter your comment at the bottom of this blog post, where it says, “Leave a Reply.” That way, I’ll see it, and so will others who follow this blog.

In fact, I’d appreciate it if you’d do just that. In previous years, the less technically hip among you replied directly to my daily e-mails. But when you do that, your comment is private between the two of us. If you post your comment to the blog, the ride becomes a little more, um, communal. Sharing is caring.

You will see a lot of links to additional information for your reading pleasure, as if you aren’t wasting enough time already reading this blog. The links will look like this, or this.

Gotcha!

Oh, and regarding the abundance of info I throw your way every day: if, by some chance, you learn something over the next few weeks … you’re welcome.

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Finally, this year’s blog introduces a special daily feature: “Today in Bucket List History.”

Every day of every year, someone checks something off their bucket list. Each day, at the end of my blog post, I’ll introduce a Bucket List goal that someone achieved on that date in history. Today, for starters, I’ll toss two your way, to help you get the hang of it.

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Bucket List Goal #1: “Ride a Bicycle Through the French Countryside and Finish at the Arch de Triomphe.”

Goal Achieved: On July 27, 1986, American cyclist Greg LeMond rides through Paris, as he wins the grueling three-week Tour de France bicycle race. He becomes the first non-European rider to win the event, which that year spanned 2,544 miles. LeMond finishes three minutes and ten seconds ahead of French cycling legend Bernard Hinault.

Bucket List Goal #2: “Demonstrate That You Have a Really Good Idea, Even if it’s Ahead of its Time.”

Goal Achieved: On July 27, 1949, the de Havilland Comet jetliner makes its first flight. Soon, it becomes the first jet-propelled aircraft to carry passengers over a scheduled commercial route. But a year after entering commercial service, three of the Comets break up in mid-flight – and after 26 hull-loss accidents, resulting in 426 fatalities, the Comet finds itself a sad footnote in aviation history.

***

Curious about my previous Harley adventures? To read blog posts from previous rides, scroll down below. You’ll find highlights from rides to:

• National Parks in Arizona, Utah and Colorado (2016)
• Arizona Mountains (2016)
• The Sierra Nevada Mountains and California’s Coast (2015)
• The Canadian Rockies (2015)
• The Colorado Rockies (2014)
• New England in the Fall (2012)
• Blue Ridge Parkway (2011)
• Lake Tahoe (2010)
• Lake Tahoe (2009)