While Wikipedia seemed to cover well the broad philosophical, religious, scientific question of the meaning of life, it did not quite focus on what to us have been the main pieces. The first of these is family. If, for example, you would ask a taxi driver busting his guts to make a living in some major city, what he is trying to achieve with all the stress and long hours, there is a good chance he will answer that it is to provide for his family. Probe a little deeper, and it may be that he wants to send a child to college, or maybe import an aging parent from the "old country", but it's all "family". That will provide his meaning in life.

While we humans may call this  motivator "family" (and oh, let's throw some sex in there too!) it actually derives from life's own primary reason for "living" - and that is, to perpetuate life. That seems a bit circular, and anyway is a bit too biological for this blog, but it supports the notion that "family" is a big player in the game of life.

The "Grampies" certainly endorsed this view. After all, they called themselves the "Grampies".  That's quite a different name and idea from say the "Speed Turtles" (which actually could have been an appropriate second choice).

Because family has been a primary focus for us, it also has been a vulnerability.  This became apparent after we dropped everything (including thousands of euros) to rush home from Prague in 2019 when our daughter's medical situation became critical. We were surprised (shocked) to find that no one in the family seemed particularly pleased to see us back. And relations actually worsened from there.

Both the daughter and the family relations eventually strengthened , but it was all quite a revelation.

With the "family" leg  under the Grampies so wobbly, Dodie and I found ourselves asking "So what then is our  purpose in living?"

Quite aside from asking Google, I turned to one of the other great authorities - Julie Andrews (or actually Oscar Hammerstein - the lyricist).  In The sound of Music, Julie sings about what sustains her, when the "dog bites" or the "bee stings". That is:

"Raindrops on roses
And whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things
Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells
And schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver-white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things"

I don't think this is really an outlandish answer, since it does correspond to one of Wikipedia's sections: "To love, to feel, to enjoy the act of living"

And anyway, Julie Andrews explicitly has in there apple strudel and schnitzel with noodles. These items alone should provide meaning to at least one half a life - even if you hold the noodles!

Here is where the bikes come in. (You may have been wondering!) It could be a worthy "Forum" topic as to what motivates the many Cycleblaze authors to do the bike tours that they do.  There are no doubt many answers, but surely a main one is to go out to find and experience our favourite things. (Maybe "to get in shape" would be #2? "freeze on a lonely road?" not so much!)

The song actually lists just fourteen items that help make life worth living.  We could try on this trip to  spot and experience them. Surprisingly that might not be all that easy, even over 4000+ km. Some items are quite Winter oriented, and for example "wild geese" we actually see a lot of right here behind our own house. But with "moon on their wings" is a stretch.  On the other hand, we are quite sure that there are thousands of other wonderful things in the world, that did not make it into the song, but that are strung out along our chosen route. We'll take note of these as we go, and maybe set up a section in the blog for photos of the best ones!