Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Bouquet List

After reading Chris Guillibeau's Happiness of Pursuit, I started thinking about what I want to accomplish in life, and while I've had this internal dialogue before, I typically focused on long term goals like writing a book or buying a home or finishing college.  But this time, I decided to focus on more of a to do list of sorts.  Things that are doable.  Some with just a little planning, some with some hard work, but all things that I should be able to accomplish before I die, if I get working on it.

I know most people would refer to that as a Bucket List, but I really hate that term for some reason.  I guess because the term "kicking the bucket" kind of annoys me too.  Did any of you ever watch "Keeping Up Appearances"? That's how I am, I kind of want to start calling it a Bouquet List.  A little pretentious, sure, but it sounds better. ;)


Anyhow, there's currently fifteen things on my list.  Here are five things I chose to share.
  1. Visit at least half of the National Parks.  There's 59 National Parks, with a large concentration in the southwest, as well as some in Hawaii and Alaska, but I think I should be able to accomplish half. The one nearest to me is Isle Royale National Park, which is a large island in Lake Superior, reachable only by small plane or ferry.  It's definitely on the list.
  2. Learn all the constellations.  The other night it was so clear and beautiful, you could see all the stars and I easily spotted Polaris and the Big Dipper, but after that, I was done.  I really want to be able to look up and see Orion and Pegasus and the gang.
  3. Learn French.  I started with an app called Duolingo and it's been pretty fun so far.  Truthfully, Spanish would be more practical around here, but maybe I'll add that to the list if I finish French.
  4. Sleep in a lighthouse.  Like at a legit B&B, not as a squatter or something.  There's a couple on the Great Lakes, and I'm sure more on the coasts.
  5. Take a trip by train.  This one would take a little planning, but Amtrak would be fun.  Or, if I ever get to Europe, I'd love to try Eurail.  Rick Steve's makes it look super easy. :)
So what about you, what's on your Bouquet List?

4 comments:

  1. I have quite a long "bouquet" list myself! Probably the biggest long-term goals are to visit every U.S. national park and every continent. The thing I want to do the most is take an Antarctica cruise.

    My husband loves trains and I love mountains, and we've talked about taking a train trip through the Canadian Rockies one day (though it seems to be crazy expensive!). Becoming fluent in another language is something I'd really like to do too -- or at least know enough to converse when I visit the country or passably understand a book written in another language. I already know a little bit of French and German, but something about Latin always piques my interest (though obviously that would be useless for travel!).

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    1. Train trip through the Canadian Rockies sounds amazing!
      And I don't think Latin would be 100% useless, because a lot of words in the Romantic languages are rooted in Latin words. Look at library: Latin it's bibliotheca, in French it's bibliotheque, and in Spanish and Italian it's biblioteca. Obviously, it isn't so nice for every word, but it would give you kind of a starting point for a lot of words.

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  2. Isle Royale has been on my bouquet list for years.

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    1. I was looking at the website for Rock Harbor Lodge, on Isle Royale and they have job openings. If I wasn't married, I'd totally be applying. You have to stay in dorms on the Island because it's a little far to commute. And just to spend a couple months there, it sounds great.

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