My Bucket List (updated and still subject to change)

Hope you enjoyed reliving the top five posts of Adventure Patches from its first five years.

For my second celebratory post, I am sharing my updated bucket list. When I first posted it in 2010, I said it was subject to change, and it has. Since then some things have fallen off the list and others have climbed the list. This updated version is 100 items long. When I wrote my bucket list the first time, I had already had some amazing adventures that probably would have been on the list had I not already done them such as flying in a hot air balloon, visiting Australia and climbing to the crown of the Statue of Liberty. So, I’ve added them to this.

As before this list is subject to change, and I’m sure I’ve left things off. I ask for your suggestions for how to accomplish these things, especially if you have done them. Anyway, here is my updated bucket list in no particular order of importance:

• Step foot on all 7 continents
• Be mesmerized in Alhambra
• Visit all 50 states
• Walk on Antarctica
• Witness the Aurora Borealis
• Australia!
• Visit the Crocodile Hunter’s wildlife park in Queensland, Australia
• Ascend to the top of Ayers Rock
• Experience the sights and sounds of Bali
• Go through Checkpoint Charlie, under the Brandenburg Gate and see Berlin united
• Write a book
• Follow the Freedom Trail and explore Boston
• Look down from the Burj Khalifa
• Take a camel trek
• Fly through the trees on a canopy tour in the Amazon or Costa Rica
• Examine the details of China’s 4 major Buddhist grottoes
• Experience Cuba
• Take a river cruise down the Danube
• Trek through Denali National Park and take a whale cruise through Alaskan Waters
• Gaze into the blank stare of the Maoi on Easter Island
• Ride and elephant through the wilderness of India
• Be overshadowed by Mount Everest
• Experience the Everglades
• Explore by land and sea Fiordland National Park in New Zealand
• Visit the Forbidden City
• Be Surrounded by the Walls of Fujian Tulou
• Explore the Galapagos Islands
• Gawk at Gaudi’s Architecture
• Attend General Conference in the Conference Center
• Walk the Giant’s Causeway
• Explore the great pyramids of Giza and other Egyptian wonders
• Hike into the Grand Canyon
• Walk on the Great Wall of China
• Be edified at Hagia Sophia
• See Buddha in heroic form throughout Asia
• Participate in the Hill Cumorah Pageant with my family
• Experience the Holy Land including Mount Sinai, Jerusalem, the River Jordan and Sea of Galilee
• Get immersed in Hong Kong
• Fly in a hot air balloon
• Revisit the land of my mission, Hungary, and see old friends and explore
• Explore Iceland
• Feel the spray of Iguazu Falls
• Stand in awe of the beauty of Tehran and Iran
• See the crack in the Liberty Bell
• Stand in reverence in Independence Hall
• Wander London
• Hike through Machu Picchu
• Explore the Mayan temples of Central America
• Smile back at the Mona Lisa
• Visit the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico
• Explore Morocco
• Climb Mount Kilauea and visit lava flows and see a black sand beach
• Have at least one of my photos published in National Geographic
• Look down on the Nazca Lines
• Get intimate with NYC
• Go to the Olympics, summer and winter, and attend the opening and closing ceremonies or help plan them
• Visit One WTC and 9/11 Memorial
• Be educated at Oxford and walk the corridors of Cambridge
• Gaze upon “Paradise Falls” at Mount Roraima
• Gaze upon Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower and while I’m at it visit Notre Dame
• Ponder the great philosophers of Greece at the Parthenon
• Prance through Patagonia
• Visit Petra in Jordan
• Publish a collection of poetry
• Explore Prague
• Watch a president’s inauguration from close enough to the Capitol Building that I can see their faces
• Walk through Red Square in Moscow
• Explore the architectural wonders of Rome
• Take a safari in Kenya and see Mount Kilimanjaro in nearby Tanzania and maybe hike it
• Visit Salzburg, Austria and maybe sing at the top of my lungs in a green meadow in the Alps
• See San Fran from the Golden Gate and explore the hilly city
• Gaze up at the mighty sequoias and redwoods
• Take in Singapore
• Investigate all of the Smithsonian museums
• Visit South Africa and maybe go in a shark cage with great whites all around
• Visit Southeast Asia and see beautiful remnants of ages past
• Explore St. Petersburg
• Climb to the crown of the statue of Liberty
• Walk amongst the monoliths of Stonehenge
• Tour the Sydney Opera House
• Be amazed by the Taj Mahal
• Visit all LDS temples
• Visit the Terracotta Warriors
• Experience the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade from the grandstand
• Show reverence at Thorvaldsen’s original Christus and 12 apostles
• Visit Tibet and the Potala Palace
• See a lowland gorilla, chimpanzee and tiger in the wild
• Ride the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Vladivostok to Moscow
• Hike in Utah’s National Parks
• Visit the Vatican and maybe see the Pope
• Ride a gondola through the canals of Venice
• See and opera in the coliseum in Verona, Italy
• Go inside the White House and see the Oval Office
• Visit the most significant historical, cultural and natural sites in the world inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List
• Appreciate the works of America’s greatest architect, Frank Lloyd Wright
• Walk the steps of my ancestors at Historic Pioneer Sites in Wyoming
• Explore the wonders of the world’s first national park
• Say a prayer in Muir’s cathedral – Yosemite Valley
• See the “Floating Mountains” of ZhangJiaJie
• Be mesmerized by the colorful Zhangye Danxia Landform Geological Park in China

I’ve also updated my page with the bucket list items. This is where you can see images and what has been accomplished or is in progress.

I invite any and all of you to join me in these adventures. After all, adventures are even better when there is someone to share them with.