The Quest Continues

Back in January of 2022 I wrote “What’s Your Quest” -https://www.retiredandinspiredat55.com/post/what-s-your-quest – about the importance of keeping active and having goals. One of my quests has been to write consistently and to choose topics of interest to my readers – I hope I have succeeded in the latter. It’s great mental exercise to identify topics and create posts. The quests that inspired this post are of a much more active nature though.

I’ll start with our friend Steve and his never-ending quest to get to every brewery in NJ. He accomplished this for the first time in September of last year. That feat was the subject of my podcast “Inspired by Beer Quest Completed” in September 2022 – listen to our conversation on the Music Player page of my blog site. Just a week after his accomplishment, 4 new breweries opened in the state, requiring the quest to continue.

At this writing he has completed his quest no less than 4 times as new breweries are opening on a fairly regular basis. For craft beer lovers, that’s a wonderful trend, and for Steve it means planning trips to every corner of the state. When we spoke back in September 2022, he was considering adding brewpubs to his quest, but to date, the pace of brewery openings has kept him busy and put a hold on that expansion. I’ve been lucky to have been included on some of the brewery trips and it’s always a good time as just being with friends makes it fun, and having some good beer at a new place is a bonus. Steve is currently attempting go get to the newest batch of breweries before more open. Stay tuned for updates as he continues to crisscross NJ on his noble quest.

The next inspiration comes from a NJ couple who were recently featured in a local newspaper article and a local news feature. Their quest is to visit every diner in NJ. While this is much less of a moving target than breweries, there are many more diners in NJ (the state has been called the diner capital of the world) than there are breweries. They have no timetable for completion; for them, this quest is about doing something they both enjoy and experiencing different parts of the state. They’ve met a lot of interesting people and have a collection of great stories. Diner visits are planned out as leisurely trips and they make a day out of hitting multiple diners in an area when possible. The only criteria is that they have something to eat at each diner. Like Steve, they don’t rate the food or location. This quest is all about having fun and spending time together. I wish them safe travels and good eating!

These are just 2 examples of quests people have chosen to pursue for the sake of the experience. A quest doesn’t need to be as big as these, it can be anything that keeps you moving forward. Your quest doesn’t even need to have an end goal. It could be as simple as learning something new and applying that knowledge, utilizing your skills and talents to give back to the community, or even to just get out of the house and be more active. No matter what your quest is, the important thing is to have something to strive for. It’ll keep you mentally sharp and maybe even physically sharp as well. So, what’s your quest?

www.RetiredandInspiredat55.com 4-24-2023