All right. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Good, Good, Bad. For the vast majority of you, this is a completely new series we're launching here on the Dyrbag Diaries.

But if you've been a Diaries Plus subscriber, you've been listening to this for almost a year now.

With members support, we have been developing the series about journeys, adventures, trips, races, and the people

who accept that challenge. And it has all been made possible through listener support, which is

just incredible. So many of you step forward to say that you believe this show should keep going

into its next decade. We are very, very grateful. To those of you who aren't members,

the fate of the diaries is not a done deal.

You get to weigh in.

You get a vote in what happens to us as the media landscape shifts

and algorithms make it harder for independent creatives

to find and keep audiences.

We are deeply grateful to the sponsors who have stayed with us, who have kept us going,

but we also could not have done it without our Diaries Plus members.

We would not be here, period.

So please consider joining.

The link is in the show notes.

It's why we're here today and why this year we're going to bring you more stories. So every adventure has its good parts, it's even better parts,

and its difficult parts. These are the memories that stay with us that create a richness

of friendship, experience, and learning in an otherwise deeply complicated world.

This series celebrates that while also providing a little bit of ongoing inspiration

to keep you planning and scheming and saying yes when friends invite you on a journey.

Today's story, it starts with a text message.

...