Remember when we were 25 years old and thought 40 years old was such a long way away? Remember when we produced our bucket list? I do. However, I did not produce mine until I was 40 years old and still haven’t completed it all. I do not regret completing everything at my age. The reason I have not completed it is that I am still alive and working towards checking off another item on the list every day right now. So maybe I’m not in the shape I was when I was 25, but I made it up all those hills in the almost 100-degree desert this summer. Maybe I haven’t traveled to the other side of the world, but I will do that before I die. I might not ever be a best-selling author, but I will keep writing and publishing my stories. I can’t make a perfect pie crust or biscuit, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.

This summer we took a road trip through Utah, taking the long way around to get the kiddo back to college in Salt Lake City. I re-visited national parks that I haven’t seen in thirty years. It was still beautiful, not as I remember it from the past with way too many people. It was a wonderful adventure even though there were so many changes, both environmentally and city and population growth. Change happens no matter how we want it to stay the same, but I know it is a good thing to look at places I have been to through the eyes of others.

I look at other peoples’ bucket lists and wish that I had done more of the extremely hard physical activities on my list earlier in my life. I read one person’s bucket list that made me laugh: “Ride an elephant,” And yep, we did that at our wedding! I have visited almost all fifty states in my lifetime. I wanted to name a few places I have experienced. There is so much more, but I’ll leave that for another blog:

I hiked a small part of the Appalachian Trail on the weekends. I hiked and camped for seven days in the Grand Canyon with my best friends. I found the most amazing banana slugs hiking in the beautiful wet forests of the state of Washington, and watched the fish being tossed back and forth by the workers at Fisherman’s wharf. I have been to Gatlinburg, Tennessee (before it burned), and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I went to Legoland, La Joya to watch the seals and visited Coronado Island and the Mission district of San Diego. I went to Las Vegas with my best friend back in the 1990s. I have rafted in Canyonlands and the Arkansas River. We went to Hawaii to two islands. In Oahu we snorkeled in Hanauma Bay and other places. In Maui, we drove up Haleakala, took the road to Hana, and hiked the bamboo forest to the top. I took the little car up to the top of the Arch in St. Louis, MO and that was scarier than any of the waters we rafted. There are so many other places I have been to in the States but now I want to adventure out of the country. I have never been to Canada or Europe and that is the part of the bucket list I hope to complete before I die. Learning about different communities helps me grow and appreciate unfamiliar cultures and lifestyles while contributing to their economies. I look forward to completing other adventures in the coming years and learning something new each day. So, for today, I ask that you lighten up and let me know of your experiences.

As a final note, below is a list of a few more puns to lighten your day! Enjoy.

1. Why did Adele cross the road? To say “Hello” from the other side.
2. What kind of concert only costs 45 cents? A 50 Cent concert featuring Nickelback.
3. What did the grape say when it got crushed? Nothing, it just let out a little wine.
4. I want to be cremated as it is my last hope for a smoking hot body.
5. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
6. To the guy who invented zero, thanks for nothing.