Buckets

Back in January 2006, after I reluctantly turned down an invitation to crash with a Kiwi bus driver for two weeks in Christchurch, New Zealand, I came back to my reality and hated it. Seriously. Life totally sucked balls. I embarked on a "Knowledge Quest" and decided I needed to take some of that Kiwi mentality and implement it into my dead-end life. Their zest and lust for life was magnetic. I wanted to snag up some of that "Kiwi ingenuity" and their laid-back, love-life, get-out-there vibe. I wanted to soak up as much of the world and its treasures as I could. I wanted to be fearless.

 

So, not long after returning from that trip, I made a list. (Surprise, surprise... a list from Queen OCD over here!) It was a list of things I wanted to accomplish in my life. As you will read, a lot of them were things I didn't get to do while in NZ, while a lot of the others had to do with travel. Ya know... that whole "get out there and see the world outside your bubble" thing I had going. (I did, conveniently, start a separate list of places I wished to travel!) It's funny to go back and read this, almost 6 years later, and so clearly see what head-space I was occupying at the time. Some things, I had completely forgotten I had wanted to do, but have since accomplished. Other things, like "Go Camping" or anything mentioning riding an animal seem so completely foreign and will promptly be nixed from my hard copy of this collective list.

 

Does this sound like me or what?

 

 

- Skydive in Queenstown, NZ (or someplace equally as picturesque)

- Horseback ride in Queenstown, NZ

- Canyon Swing in Queenstown, NZ

- Hot air balloon ride in New Mexico

- Swim with seals in Kaikoura, NZ

- Whale watch in Kaikoura, NZ

- Swim with dolphins (wherever)

- Quad biking (in NZ or Australia preferably)

- White water rafting in Costa Rica

- Snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef

- Ride a motorcycle around Ayers Rock in Australia

- Climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge

- Go to a zoo in Australia & hug a koala

- Ride a camel on Cable Beach in Broome, Australia

- Drive the road from Melbourne to Adelaide in Australia

- Learn how to shoot a gun (I think there's probably good reason no one has helped me accomplish this goal yet!)

- Learn how to golf

- Take a Scandinavian cruise (Completed 5/11)

- Take a Mediterranean cruise

- Live by myself for at least 6 months (Completed 3/08-7/09)

- See Robbie Williams in concert

- See a football game at all NFL stadiums

- Take photography classes

- Go camping

- Learn archery

- Watch the sunrise from atop Mt. Haleakala in Maui, Hawaii

- Bike ride down Mt. Haleakala

- Helicopter ride over volcano on Big Island, Hawaii

- Climb a rock wall (Completed on my honeymoon 5/10 on a cruise ship)

- Buy a house

- Drive in a country where I drive on the wrong side of the road (Completed 4/09 in Ireland)

- Write a novel

- Kayak  (Completed 7/10 - Hilton Head, SC)

- Zipline through a jungle (Completed 11/08 – St. Lucia)

- Take an African safari 

- Ride a jetski

- Be in a hurricane

 

(I totally added that last one in just now.)

 

I'm also super proud that I have accomplished one of the things on this list that seems much more important than the other trivial travel/adventure items; I lived by myself for over a year. And while I do now have a house, I wasn't involved in the buying process, so Puff will just have to help me out with that one in a few years! For those of you who know me super well, are there any awesome things I'm missing? (Besides having a baby... that's just sorta given.) Do any of you have lists? What tops your bucket list? I've got $100 it has nothing to do with New Zealand!