Build a bucket list

  1. Go skydiving
  1. Rocky Mountain climbing
  2. 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu
  1. Go through astronaut training.
  1. The blue bucket in the closet that I was puking in when I had food poisoning.
  2. The bucket that that walrus had.
  3. The bucket on buckethead’s head.

That’s all I got.

I have a running bucket list and mark things off as I go. Some of my goals are too embarrassingly small to mention but the big, travely ones are:

Get back to the Smithsonian and spend days there.
Go back for a bleary-eyed trip to New Orleans, stopping in Biloxi to hit a casino.
Visit the British Isles on an open-ended vacation. (I’m ready when I’m done, dammit.)

I’m working on three of mine right now. Though I don’t have an actual list.

  • Learn a musical instrument. For me it’s banjo. It’s great fun.
  • Learn a new language. That would be German.
  • Visit Europe. We have a 3 week vacation planned for… you guessed it Germany/Austria.

I’d like to hear the small ones, too!

Mine are:
-swim somewhere with bio luminescence (sea lights)
-bathe in natural hot springs
-get my marriage well again

You sure?
Looking at most of these I realize it’s my health issues that are mostly holding me up. I lost part of my sight from a stroke and I’m dependent on other people to take me places and help when needed. So the stroke list is…:stuck_out_tongue:

  1. See if I can still bowl. Having a “right field defect” changes the playing field a lot. I did try to play pinball and couldn’t even see the damn ball! which breaks my heart. I love pinball. I’m going to write a poem about it and it’s going to be sexy: the alternating thrusting hips leaned up against the machine…

  2. Go antiquing across the bay. There’s a little town that has tons of antique shops.

  3. Early weekend yard sales. Flea markets. The other prob is that I have peripheral vascular disease which makes walking a big deal, which leads to…

4)Take walks. Just up and down the street a little. Stretch my legs and see what’s going on.

  1. Go dancing. I can dance like crazy for a few minutes, then sit and rest awhile, then dance again. I’d like to do that again, in public.

  2. (I have no excuse for this one.) Publish a chapbook of my poems. I write short stories, songs—hey, I have outlines of books, anyway. :stuck_out_tongue: But if I had a compilation of my poems, I’d be happy. Heck, somebody else might even read them.

  1. Find a country where necrophilia is legal (you know, just out of academic curiosity).
  1. Crash a wedding

See the Grand Canyon.

Ride a Clydesdale.

Go to Vegas.

Those are the big 3 for me I guess. I was able to knock off the other 3 biggies:Pet a tiger, go up in the St Louis Arch and swim with a dolphin.

I knew you wouldn’t come back and look.

About the only one left that I haven’t ticked off the list yet is seeing the gorillas in Rwanda. The wife is rather lukewarm about that though, and it may take some doing to talk her into it.

Tried three times while living in Uganda. Total fail.

Well, see? Ya shoulda gone to Rwanda.

Gorilla troupes are always on the move. First time we went, the company hadn’t put us on a tour, so we were on standby, which was hopeless. If you don’t have a reservation, don’t bother going. Second time, we were halfway to Bwindi when the dispatcher called and told us that the troupe had moved into the Congo and was an eight hour hike from camp through thick jungle. Screw that, turn around. Third time, we never even left Kampala, as the trek time was ten hours, which would have meant hiking back in the dark. No thanks.

Isn’t it legal in Wisconsin?

The one thing I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid that I somehow have never been able to swing and that I now realize will be boring as fuck and not worth a special trip is to see giant pandas. Just in a zoo.

See the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul
Ride a motorcycle down the Pacific Coast Highway
Get hit in the face with a pie
Juggle lit torches
Break the sound barrier

(I could probably keep adding to this if I thought about it. I won’t be heartbroken if I don’t get to all of them, but assuming sufficient time and health, they’d all be nice to get to.)

If anyone has plans to try that pie thing at a dopefest, no. I’ve got to be ready, and a willing participant. I shall make the pie myself.

Vegas and the Grand Canyon are close; you could see those on the same trip. I find that just looking at the Canyon from the rim is a bit ungraspable. Consider a donkey ride, hike, or rafting trip.

Not sure about riding a Clydesdale. They’re draft horses. Aren’t they considerably wider than saddle horses, and thus somewhat less comfortable?

Do the following things:

Live in New York for three months
Publish a book
Meet the President/Former President
Play the Blues in:
Chicago
Kansas City
St. Louis
Memphis
Greenwood, MS
Witness the launch (or landing) of a spacecraft
Visit the following places:

Mesa Verde
Yellowstone
Chichen Itza
Giza Pyramids
Mercy Brown’s Grave (Rhode Island)
London
Dubrovnik
The Statue of Liberty
The Grand Canyon
Mammoth Cave
Independence Hall
Hagia Sophia
Rome
Carlsbad Caverns
Montecello
Angkor Wat
Phuket (Thailand)
Chaco Culture National Park
Cong, County Mayo (Ireland)
Kilimanjaro
Jasenovac/Kragujevac
Harvard Yard
Parthenon
Shaolin Monastery
Castle Bran