The Bucket List Revisited

By Elaine N. Schoch

It was a Sunday morning when the adventure began; the Princesses slept until 9am and I got to drink my coffee and read the paper in absolute quite. It was going to be a good day. A perfect day. That was until it ended with me watching the sunset over the mountains as I rode in the back of ambulance to the ER.

I’m fine and things could have been worse, I could have missed today and tomorrows adventures but alas I’m hear and so far the doctors think I’ll live. Regardless, as I laid in the hospital bed listening to the man in the next room scream as he was being restrained I thought about my bucket list. I had written one about 10 years ago when my dad died and had found it last month as I was cleaning out my desk. Funny thing is I’ve done almost all of the things minus visiting Ireland and Egypt.

Me and a Roman Guard at the Colosseum

• Go to Rio de Janerio
  
•  Buy a House
•  Get Married
•  Have a kid; be a mom
•  Visit Italy; Visit the Colosseum
•  Drink wine in Napa
•  Still need to do: See the Pyramids in Egypt; Drink Guinness in a pub in Dublin or somewhere cool in Ireland

I realized how lucky I was to have done all of these things and more in the last 35 years but also just how much more I want to do. So, it’s time to revisit the Bucket List, the list of things to do before you die.

Of course I still need to see the Pyramids in Egypt but I think that will need to wait until things quite down  politically. And drinking a Guinness in a pub in Dublin or somewhere cool in Ireland will happen, hopefully sooner than later. But I needed to update my list. The ones I’ve noted below are simply travel related, in no particular order. The others I’ll keep to myself for now…

• Hike a 14er. Should be easy given I live in Colorado but I’d like to hike it without a kid on my back.
• Go the Grand Canyon, hike with a guide and swim in the water falls
  
• Travel with the Princesses internationally before they’re six-years-old
  
• Hike through a rainforest
• See a volcano and hike it
• Glacier National Park
  
• Take a gondola ride in Venice (Italy, not Vegas)
• Take Princess Two (and Princess One if she wants to come) back to Russia and go on a river cruise through the country with her/them
  
• Visit Jerusalem and be a pilgrim for a few days
• See the Aurora Borealis (in person)
  
• Go to Greece
• Walk the Great Wall of China
• Learn another language and speak fluently or at least be able to order a meal with ease
  
• Get my blog to over 5,000 uniques a day (this is something you can help me with – SHARE!)
• Attend a hot air balloon festival; not sure I want to ride in one though until all the above are accomplished and the Princesses are out of college
  

This list is a work in progress and will grow I’m sure of it. Have you made a bucket list? Are you circling back to it to make sure you’re doing those things? After all, what’s the point of creating a bucket list if you’re not going to take action to achieve it? If you have travel musts on your bucket list, where are they?

Life is short. Live it.