Three years ago…I had a simple goal…conquer…Penitentiary Mountain…and I 
did…but don’t get excited…it wasn’t some military coup…or prison break…it was…a bike ride…
And…actually…I did it twice…just to prove that the first time wasn’t a fluke…and…really…I did it three times…if you count the time I did it from the opposite direction…just because I thought it would be easier…
It wasn’t…
Now…for those of you who aren’t from around here…Penitentiary Mountain…is on the edge of the…Bankhead Forrest…and is the second highest peak in Lawrence County…topping off at 1074 feet…
I know…you probably had visions of the lofty peaks of the Rockies…and…that doesn’t even sound like a mountain…but…I assure you…for me…at least…it was 1074 grueling feet…and there was more than once that I questioned if I would make it to the top…alive…
Obviously…I did…but…I did have tunnel vision and a migraine for three days after the last ascent…something about…dehydration…
So…why did I do it…why was it so important to me…
Honestly…plain and simple…to prove that I could…
This morning…as I went for a ride…Bertha…encouraged me to make a goal for the summer…it was simple…
Enjoy the ride…
At first…I balked…that wasn’t a challenge…weren’t goals supposed to be challenging…shouldn’t I be proving something…
But…she insisted…enjoying the ride…was a most important goal…as she pointed out interesting things along the way…a zebra print canvas bag…discarded in the ditch…reading glasses in the middle of a country road…wild flowers…a few friendly dogs…an azure blue sky…and…Penitentiary Mountain…looming in the distance…
She reminds me…goals should be about feelings…not just accomplishments…that…the more I enjoy the ride…the more I will actually ride…which…may or may not…get me to the top of Penitentiary Mountain again…but…that either way…will be just fine…
Of course…she says the same reasoning applies to all of my goals…the more I enjoy something…the more I’ll do it…and the more likely I’ll be successful at it…
Makes sense…I’m in…
Jane
PS…wonder how I can work in the canvas bag and reading glasses into a story…if only I wrote mysteries…
