Life List

You have most likely heard about them and seen some out there. Most recently I caught one on a Visa ad in a magazine, how Visa can help you achieve your life list. Ellen DeGeneres is big on making a life list this season (not that I actually am at home to watch her, though she does crack me up, but her show plays on XM Radio over lunch and I catch it on occasion). Then there are books like “1000 Things to See Before You Die”. In a way it seems somewhat morbid to me, but in another it is reality, we don’t live forever so during your time here what do you want to do/accomplish?

Having things in writing is a great motivator. About a year before AB and I left Northern Nevada we made a list of things we wanted to do, not knowing when we would get back there. Truly it is a great area with lots to offer, we fell in love with it and would easily consider moving back if there were jobs for both of us. Of course the downside is the public education, it sucked. Anyways, back to the topic at hand. On our list before we left Reno we wanted to do things like; go to a bottle your own wine event at Coulson Winery in the Sierra Foothills (a lot of fun), go swim at the hot springs just south of Carson City (not all it was cracked up to be), go to Yosemite (can’t wait to go back), visit Mammoth one last time (can I go back tomorrow? And not just for the Coach outlet), go to the Black Rock Desert and swim in the natural hot springs (fabulous, never made it for Burning Man though), go to Napa and Sonoma one more time (yum), drive 101 South to Monterey (gorgeous), hit the Shakespeare Festival at Lake Tahoe once more (fabulous). I don’t think there was anything on our list we didn’t do, but we were also DINKs (though my income was minimal). We were busy nearly that entire year. How I wrote my dissertation, I am not sure.

So let’s take that concept and enlarge it in all aspects. Instead of one year, assume we have 50 or so more, and instead of one region, the options are endless. (I am limiting this one to my personal list, I have another one in the works that is more limited in scope, with regards to what I want to share with my children.) What would you do?

Here’s my list in progress (and in no specific order) so far:

-Read War and Peace
-Build a cabin from the ground up.
-Do a triathlon
-Sail the Inside Passage
-See a whale in the wild
-See a polar bear in the wild
-Go back to see both Kilauea and Arenal volcanoes while they are still active.
-Go helicopter (or holy-topter if you are Leif) skiing in British Columbia.
-Drink a bottle of Opus One (I have to see if it is all it is cracked up to be).
-Go to Italy and swim in the warm waterfall I have heard about.
-Go to Sweden to the region where my great grandmother’s family hails from.
-See the World Trade Center monument.
-Hear Richard Thompson in concert (yes… again… sorry AB).
-Eat foie gras.
-Go to New Orleans
-Eat in a Michelin three star restaurant
-Go deep sea fishing (with lots of Dramamine)
-Cross the Arctic Circle
-Meet a president and have my picture taken shaking his/her hand.
-Go to the Grand Canyon.
-See a space shuttle lift off in person.
-Go to the Olympics (Canada 2010?)