Things to Do

My sister-in-law recently posted a list of 50 things to do before she dies. Her list is condensed from a list of “100 things to do before you die.” Looking over the list, it is amazing how many of these things my wife and I have actually done! Here is the list of things we have done out of the list of 50 things to do. We have not done all of the 50, but many of them.

5. Skinny Dip
In Japan, we went to an outdoor, roadside hot bath and, yes we skinny dipped in the steaming hot water pool by the river, next to the road, under the stars. We got out pretty quickly when we saw headlights stop on the road above us!

6. Eat in New Orleans French Quarter
We had beignets at the famous restaurant by the canal. The girls did not want to go to Disneyland, so we opted for New Orleans. While we were there we saw Atlantis' contrail as it come in for a landing at Cape Canaveral. Of course, this was before Katrina.

8. Make love in the Redwood forests of California
Well, some things don't need commentary!

13. Camp in Yosemite
When I was just a kid, maybe 5 years old, we went through Yosemite, fished in the river and swam in the lake. Even in the 1950’s it was super-crowded.

16. See "Old Faithful" spout
When I was 15, Mom, Dad and I made a vacation trip to see their "old home places." Dad had picked up a hearse for a funeral director in our home town, and was driving it back to Oregon. Since we were in a hearse, everyone yielded the right-of-way to us and we got through in record time. There are many more hearse stories, but not for this venue.

17. Shower in a waterfall.
When we were in Japan, we went with friends to a sulfur river fed by a waterfall. We spent hours in the hot spring sulfur water, playing in the water and under the waterfall. We just had to be careful not to get the water in our eyes because it stung them.

19. Spend New Year's in an exotic location.
Does Tokyo count as an exotic location?

22. Drive across America from coast to coast.
When we were stationed in Florida, when our son was an infant, we drove from Florida to California in just over 48 hours to visit her parents. We did not tell my Dad we were going. When he tried to call us at home and he got no answer, he called the base locator at my duty station to see if something had happened to us. They told him we were on leave, and he got mad that we had not told him we were leaving.

25. Spend a whole day in bed ----- reading!
Well, I was sick and contagious; reading was better than sleeping, having slept as much as I could.

33. Be debt free
We sold our trailer house in Florida when we PCS'd to Nevada. This is how we were able to afford buying a house when we moved to Las Vegas. We were debt free when we moved from Japan to the US, if you don't count the mortgage for the house we never lived in at Willow Creek CA.

34. Go to the top of the Space NeedleWell, not the Space Needle. Does the Tokyo Tower (replica of the Eiffel Tower) count?

36. Ride in a horse-drawn carriage
We took my sister to see Beale Street in Memphis. There was a carriage there, and my sister said she had always wanted to ride in one, so we took a tour of downtown Memphis in a horse drawn carriage. The funniest thing was that the horse had this "catcher" under his be-hind, so he would not "foul" the city streets.

38. See a tornado.
Having seen several, I recommend you skip this one. They are terrifying in their awesome power. Then when you see the after effects in destroyed property, you are amazed that people survive these things, and heartbroken for the loss of life and property. Lives are changed by these “acts of God.” There is no such thing as “tornado proof.”

40. Fly first classThis was no big deal. The coffee was served in real mugs instead of paper cups, and the seats were wider with a bit more leg room. But everyone arrived at the same instant at our destination, and some of the people sitting in the "normal" seats actually got their luggage first and cleared the airport before we could.

45. Tour the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl HarborThis one was definitely worth the tour price. I wept as I stood at the memorial and read the names of the men who are entombed in the ship below. I saw the oil bubbling up from the ship to the surface of the harbor. If you get to see this, don't miss the theater video and the museum/gift shop there.

49. See the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights)
This is definitely an awesome event. You don't have to be in Alaska to see it, but I guess you could combine this effort with an Alaskan cruse! The lights we saw were in Japan. The lights were shades of purple and hues of yellow mixed together. The meteorologist said it could not have been the Aurora, but offered no convincing alternative, saying they were the lights of fishing boats reflected on low hanging clouds. Even the local Japanese people said it was the Aurora!

Good luck with your list.