4 Nov 2010

My Bucket List (subject to change)

by | posted in: Adventure, Historic Site, Museum, National Parks, Photography, Travel | 14

I’ve had a lot of time to think over the last couple of months with no job or school to occupy my time. Don’t get me wrong, searching for a job is hard work and takes a lot of time to write cover letters, search for openings, network, tweak my resume and LinkedIn profile, but its not like last year when I would have been at a theater every night this week preparing for the first Young Ambassadors shows of the year while also taking classes, doing homework, being involved in PRSSA, the Student Alumni Association, church and a social life of sorts. That was a long sentence. I’m just saying that I have had more idle time over the last couple of months than probably any other two-month period over the last several years. I’ve used it to job hunt, blog, catch up on TV shows, read lots of news and stuff on my profession and social media, do chores that my parents have been putting off and I’ve had to do for them, and just think.

During my pondering, I have thought a lot about what my goals are in life, both professionally and personally. I have had many ideas of things I want to do sometime in my life. Many people call this a bucket list, basically a list of things one wants to do before one dies. So, here is my bucket list in no particular order of importance or preference.

  • Attend the Grand Prix de Monaco
  • Walk on the Great Wall of China
  • Visit the Forbidden City
  • Explore the great pyramids of Giza and other Egyptian wonders
  • Experience the Holy Land including Mount Sinai, Jerusalem, the Jordan River, Sea of Galilee
  • Visit Petra in Jordan
  • Walk on Antarctica
  • Take a safari in Kenya and see Mount Kilimanjaro in nearby Tanzania and maybe hike it
  • Visit South Africa and maybe go in a shark cage with great whites all around
  • Visit all LDS temples
  • Investigate all of the Smithsonian museums
  • Go inside the White House and see the Oval Office
  • Trek through Denali National Park and take a whale cruise through Alaskan waters (I want to see a narwhal)
  • Climb Mount Kilauea and visit active lava flows and a black sand beach
  • Ascend to the top of Ayers Rock
  • Visit the Crocodile Hunter’s wildlife park in Queensland, Australia
  • Hike through Machu Picchu
  • Explore the Mayan temples of Central America
  • Look down on the Nazca Lines
  • Fly through the trees on a canopy tour of the Amazon
  • Visit the Vatican and maybe see the Pope
  • Walk through Red Square in Moscow
  • Take a river cruise down the Danube
  • Visit Salzburg, Austria and maybe sing at the top of my lungs in a green meadow in the Alps
  • Go to the North Pole
  • Ride the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Vladivostok to Moscow
  • Explore St. Petersburg
  • Visit the terracotta warriors
  • See the Cave of Swallows in Mexico
  • Go through Checkpoint Charlie and see Berlin united and remnants of the wall
  • Walk amongst the monoliths of Stonehenge and Easter Island
  • Explore Prague
  • Be amazed by the Taj Mahal
  • See Buddha in heroic form throughout Asia
  • Gaze upon Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower and while I’m at it visit Notre Dame
  • Stand atop the white cliffs of Dover
  • Be educated at Oxford and walk the corridors of Cambridge
  • Photograph inside the Library of Congress, inside the actual study room not just the lobby
  • Go to the Olympics, summer and winter, and attend the opening and closing ceremonies or help plan them
  • Ponder on the great philosophers of Greece at the Parthenon
  • See an opera in the coliseum in Verona, Italy
  • Have at least one of my photos published in National Geographic
  • Explore the architectural wonders of Rome
  • Ride a gondola through the canals of Venice
  • Appreciate the work of America’s greatest architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, at and in the homes he built
  • Ring the opening bell of the NYSE
  • Explore by land and sea Fiordland National Park in New Zealand
  • Watch a president’s inauguration from close enough to the Capitol Building that I can see their faces
  • Experience the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade from the grandstand
  • Revisit the land of my mission, Hungary, and see old friends and explore
  • Stand in awe of the beautiful mosques of Tehran
  • See a giant panda, lowland gorilla, chimpanzee, tiger in the wild
  • Explore Morocco
  • Smile back at the Mona Lisa
  • Ride an elephant through the jungles of India and Southeast Asia and see beautiful remnants of ages past
  • Experience the sites and sounds of Bali
  • Be overshadowed by Mount Everest

Well, that’s most of it. I’m sure there are more things I want to see, do and experience before I die like getting married and having kids, but that is my bucket list. This will make many great adventures. In the mean time, I will continue to have adventures both near and far.

What’s on your bucket list?

If you have questions about what any of these are or have advice to accomplish any of these or want to join me, please post a comment.

14 Responses

    • kevinearl
      |

      Thanks for the comment. I hope I find a job soon too. If you know of anything in the PR industry, entry level, I would appreciate your recommendation.

  2. Susanna
    |

    I’ve done at least 2 of those things but would LOVE to do them again! You would also enjoy exploring the Hermitage and the Kremlin. Sounds like a good list to me. Why don’t you make a few million dollars so you can do them all and take me with you!

    • kevinearl
      |

      I know there are many places I would love to visit while on all of these adventures, so the big adventure would be the main event with little events like the Kremlin or Beijing Olympic Park or eating at the Carnivore restaurant in Africa. And, I gotta get a job before I can worry about making a few million dollars.

  3. Lady Ozma
    |

    You’ve got quite the list!!! Wow! Some are things I’d like to do. Some are things that I’ve done. OK, maybe two.

    If you do the Library of Congress one, call me. I’ll meet you there and take your photograph where ever you want, even a reading room. 🙂 That way you can have a picture of yourself as well. 🙂 I only just recently went for the first time. Isn’t that super lame of me?

    As for the inauguration, you know I almost went to O’s. Like him or not, there was historical significance to the nation electing a bi-racial POTUS. I just don’t want to deal with the traffic. Plus the fact they made it so you couldn’t drive into the city. Painful. My husband worked from home because of the mess the city was. We watched from the comfort of our home where it was warm and we had a great view. My husband told me where each of the cameras were located. Guess who was PM over that project? *GRINS*

    • kevinearl
      |

      I just went to the library last summer, my first time in D.C., and loved it. The reading room is just beautiful with all of the murals, but you can only look into it and not take pictures. When I get that opportunity, I will definitely have you there.

      You not going to the inauguration is like people who live in Salt Lake City not going to General Conference. As a local it isn’t worth the effort to be crowded out of your own city. However, I love the energy of large events like that, especially when everyone is there for the same reason. That’s one reason why, in my opinion, there is no better place to attend conference than at temple square preferably in the conference center. What does your husband do as PM for such an big, important event?

      • Lady Ozma
        |

        I also don’t do the fireworks here. See here’s the problem with DC. Traffic on a normal day is so nightmarish. Once it took my husband 5 hours to get from the pentagon to home. Stupid rain and motorcades. It’s nothing to get stuck in regular traffic for hours. You combine that with mega boat loads of tourists? I went to see the fireworks once. It’s less popular than an inauguration. We watched all four Rambo movies. I forget what we put on after Rambo. That was when I decided that tvs in vans were the most brilliant thing EVER. And, I’d like to add, we never even made it into DC.

        If I ever do an inauguration, it will be with a hotel room. This last one no one could drive in the city. (Believe me, this is really a blessing, however it made it even more crowded on the metro.) The train did not run. So my husband was like, “I have to work and cannot get there. WTH?” Thankfully he can work from home and did that day.

        My husband does telecom. His company did the work in the Cappy Visitor’s Center. Did you know it takes 3 hours to x-ray the basement floor because of all the concrete? Yeah, useful info. Be prepared for Jeapardy now. So his company also laid the fiber and the cameras that the networks use for broadcasting. So he wasn’t doing anything for the Inaug or anything specifically, just putting together the things that allow for those types of events to broadcast.

        Can you not take pix in the reading rooms? I took pix, but I was focusing on the giant globe. It was too cool. It was in the lobby of one of the buildings. It was late, so I wasn’t going for any of the reading rooms so much as just gawking.

        I’d love to fight the crowds and go to General Conference. 🙂 But I’ve also driven in SLC at rush hour. And it’s not so bad. 🙂

  4. kevinearl
    |

    My friend posted this comment on Facebook about this: “Oh, my goodness, Kevin! You either have to be extremely rich to do all these things or live at least 100 more years – esp once you get married and have kids. 🙂 Liked reading them though and dream for a few minutes…thank you. :)”

    It is good to dream, and maybe someday some of my dreams will come true.

  7. Taliesin West – Frank’s Winter Home and Studio « Adventure Patches
    |

    […] Ever since my interior design classes at LDS Business College, I’ve been fascinated by Frank Lloyd Wright’s work. His design philosophy and the actual outcomes intrigued me. I found the simplicity, cohesion and purpose of everything beautiful. So, it would be safe to bet that one item on my bucket list is to appreciate Frank’s masterpieces in person, and it is. […]