One of the things circulating online now is a bucket list: 100 things to see before you die.
Perusing the list, I note that I have only seen 10 of the 100: the Empire State Building, Mount Rushmore, Niagara Falls, the Sears (now Willis) Tower, the Smithsonian, the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Walt Disney World, the Washington Monument and the White House.
I’ve been to St. Louis, but that was before the Gateway Arch was built. And we skipped New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Bonnie’s list is longer. She’s been to Glacier National Park, the Grand Canyon, Hollywood Boulevard, Redwood National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park and Yosemite National Park in addition to my 10. And her family drove through Las Vegas — I don’t know if it was on the strip — long enough to get a watch fixed but wouldn’t let the kids out of the car in that “sinful” city.
There are 23 U.S. sites on the list, some of which I’d like to see, such as the Grand Canyon, the Alamo, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Space Needle in Seattle. As we age and travel becomes more difficult, we aren’t holding our breath.
I doubt we’ll pick up the international sites; physical and financial limitations are two big factors. And Bonnie has zero interest in flying, which puts a damper on any plans to see the Great Wall of China, Big Ben, the Colosseum in Rome, the Eiffel Tower, the Kremlin and Mounts Fuji, Kilimanjaro, Matterhorn or Everest.
I don’t know how the list was arrived at. We’ve marked off some other impressive sites from our own bucket list (if you didn’t see the 2007 movie “The Bucket List,” the list delineates things you want to do before you kick the bucket).
For some strange reason, Yellowstone National Park wasn’t on the list. Bonnie’s been there. And to Wounded Knee, the Continental Divide and lots of other places between here and the West Coast.
My list includes Lake Itasca in Minnesota, the headwaters of the Mississippi (I can truthfully say I’ve waded across the Mississippi River) and two legendary baseball parks, old Yankee Stadium and Wrigley Field. I was close to Death Valley but not in it during Army maneuvers.
Together, Bonnie and I have seen the Lincoln Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, Great Smoky Mountain National Park, the Bronx Zoo, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Bahamas (not Andras Island, which is on the list), Stone Mountain, Ga., Underground Atlanta and the Mall of America.
In the next few years we may be able to work in a trip to Oklahoma, where my dad spent his childhood and Bonnie was born, and pass the Gateway Arch. We have no interest in Vegas or the Atlantic City Boardwalk. And I can pretty well guarantee we’ll never see the Sydney Opera House or the Wailing Wall.
Still, we can say we’ve had a wonderful life.
Jim Bailey’s column appears on Wednesday. He can be reached by email at jameshenrybailey@earthlink.net.
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Jim Bailey: Lengthy bucket list is apt to stay long
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