Bucket List

Almost a year ago my lovely friend Gab and her lovely father Glen took me salmon fishing, and a miracle occurred.  I actually caught one!! They'd taken me salmon fishing several times before.  Apparently I suck as an angler, because not only had I never managed to catch a salmon before, but while I was along no one else caught any either. I've caught other fish over the years, but I really wanted a salmon.  It was on my bucket list.  In fact, I had planned on taking a salmon fishing excursion in Alaska, but when I came to examine the details of the prospect, it was so expensive and then there's the issue of getting your catch home from Alaska if you should be lucky enough to snag some, I decided to go off-roading in the Yukon instead, much to our mutual satisfaction.  Anyway, a couple of months after the Alaska trip, Gab and Glen kindly invited me along and the result was at long last successful.

I look creepily excited.

It's always satisfying being able to cross something off your bucket list.  Looking back at this outing got me thinking, I don't actually have a physical bucket list written down.  I have a mental list, but we all know a goal is much more likely to be accomplished if it's set down on paper, so today I'm going to do that.

Things I want to do before I die:
See the Grand Canyon, (mule ride to the bottom)
Visit the Smithsonian
Travel to Scotland
Visit my cousin in Palm Desert
Visit my cousin in Washington DC
Weigh less than 200 lbs
Hike the Milford Track
Climb a volcano (driving up the one outside Bend doesn't count!)
Own a house and land
Make my studio support itself
Drive to Alaska
Write something (novel, screenplay, book of verse, children's book)
Raise chickens
Go sky diving
Take a hot air balloon ride
Ride a camel/elephant
Learn to fly a plane
Get a PhD
Do a European road-trip
Fly first class
Produce something on my pottery wheel
See a Broadway play
Sing with Dave Plaehn
Learn to make cheese
Take a vow of silence
Learn Spanish or Mandarin
Attend an All Blacks test match
Test drive a Rolls Royce/classic Jaguar/Mercedes
Visit all 7 continents:
   North America
   South America
   Asia
   Africa
   Europe
   Antarctica
   Australia
Visit all 50 states:
   Alabama
   Alaska
   Arizona
   Arkansas
   California
   Colorado
   Connecticut
   Delaware
   Florida
   Georgia
   Hawaii
   Idaho
   Illinois
   Indiana
   Iowa
   Kansas
   Kentucky
   Louisiana
   Maine
   Maryland
   Massachusetts
   Michigan
   Minnesota
   Mississippi
   Missouri
   Montana
   Nebraska
   Nevada
   New Hampshire
   New Jersey
   New Mexico
   New York
   North Carolina
   North Dakota
   Ohio
   Oklahoma
   Oregon
   Pennsylvania
   Rhode Island
   South Carolina
   South Dakota
   Tennessee
   Texas
   Utah
   Vermont
   Virginia
   Washington
   West Virginia
   Wisconsin
   Wyoming
Visit the Las Vegas Strip at night
Attend the running of the sheep
Visit Chichen Itza
Keep bees

I'm sure more things will occur to me, but this will be enough to be going on with for awhile :)