Bucket Lists and Such

     I've arrived at that certain age, when I've begun to see friends and peers pass away due to various causes, and now I've suddenly become aware of having begun a "Bucket List." Of course it wasn't called a bucket list per se, at that point in my life, but a "List of Things I Want to Do Sometime."
     A List of Things I Want to Do Sometime, sounds so much more full of life and hope, but alas Bucket List is much shorter in the vernacular. So, bucket list it is.
     Number one on my list is to travel to Nepal and hike to Mt. Everest Base Camp with the elevation of 17,600-feet. Originally it was, please don't laugh, to climb Mt. Everest. Yes that was my dream vacation, traveling to Kathmandu in May, hiking to base camp and then ascending to camps 1, 2, 3 and 4 at the South Col at 26,000-feet and then the final push to the Hillary Step and on to the summit rising at 29,028-feet. 
     I would daydream of climbing over and through the Khumbu icefall with my crampons strapped to my boots, swinging my ice ax. Ascending aluminum extension ladders across bottomless crevasses. Then ascending through the Western Cmw (a Welsh word pronounced koom, meaning valley), and finally with many hardships, freezing cold and danger, with my oxygen tank providing needed air, I would snap my photo at the top of the world.

As close as I'll probably get to the Everest experience--The Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

     Well, I'm not sure if my number-1 bucket list item will ever be crossed off, but it's an adventure to dream about. Other entries on my list is to visit Tuscany, Italy and Paris, France, fly in a hot air balloon in some exotic place, go to Bora Bora, to photograph wildlife in Africa's Maasai Mara and most recently to hike the Pacific Crest Trail or PCT, roughing it with my back pack and gear.
     The most recent bucket list idea came from reading Cheryl Strayed's New York Times Best Seller, "Wild--From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail." An excellent book about one woman's journey, by herself to find herself. Through the course of life we all need to find our self--to find what anchors us in this vast ocean of humanity. Maybe bucket lists provide that inward look into ourselves at a time when we realize  life is short and there is still so much to do, and see and people to connect with.
     Some of my bucket list ideas have been achieved--such as hiking and photographing the Wave in the Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area in Arizona, flying in a small plane and taking aerial photos, travelling the Western U.S., hiking in a slot canyon, having a greyhound for a pet, photographing the stars...and reconnecting with friends that I haven't visited with for a long time. So much to do in one lifetime--and not enough time. I guess I need to continue to work on my, can I say, "List of Things I Want to Do Sometime..." my Bucket List. I need to make every minute count!

Night sky and star trails near Louisville, Ky.