Bucket List
Become a PA — T-minus four months!
Visit all 7 continents
Live in a foreign country — the Netherlands, 2003-4
Learn to speak Dutch fluently
Take a SwimTrek trip
Bike through Western Europe
Raft the Grand Canyon
Get LASIK eye surgery – 11/2005
Improve my Spanish proficiency
Go on safari in Africa — Tanzania, 3/2012
Run a marathon x2 — in 2008 and 2010
Vacation in Hawaii
Do medical work in a Third World country — Tanzania, 3/2012
Celebrate New Year’s in Times Square
Swim 12.5 miles around Key West — 6/25/2005
Swim 8 miles through Boston Harbor — in 55-degree water, 8/2006
Swim the English Channel — relay on 8/7/2007, completed in 11 h 27 m
Run a half marathon in under 2 hours — (PR 2:06:55 in Myrtle Beach in 2/2011)
Complete a half Ironman triathlon — 9/2007; definitely my most difficult athletic endeavor!
Complete a full Ironman triathlon
Visit all 50 states — (28 to go: AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NM, ND, OK, OR, RI, SD, TX, UT, VT, WA, WV, WI, WY)
See the ruins at Pompeii
Swim in Capri’s Blue Grotto
Tour Mt. Vesuvius
Throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain
Tour the Colosseum
Visit the D-Day beaches at Normandy
See the Mona Lisa
Visit the palace at Versailles
See the Acropolis and Parthenon
Kiss the Blarney Stone — 10/2005
Visit Stonehenge — 8/2007
Visit Auschwitz-Birkenau — 10/2003
Climb the Eiffel Tower — 6/2004
Visit Monet’s garden — 6/2004
See the Egyptian pyramids
Hike the Inca Trail
Walk El Camino Santiago
Take an Alaskan cruise
Visit NYC and see a Broadway play — won a front-row seat to Wicked, 2/2011, and briefly met the incredible Teal Wicks afterward
View the Taj Mahal at sunrise
Hike Table Mountain in South Africa
Climb through the Amazon canopy
Walk at least part of the Great Wall of China
Go parasailing — in the Canary Islands, 2/2004
Swim with dolphins — at Discovery Cove, 5/2009
Learn to surf
Learn to kneeboard — on a lake in Maine, 7/2006
Learn to wakeboard
Learn to water-ski
Learn to snow ski
Learn to snowboard
Learn to horseback ride — seven years of lessons, 1995-2002
Visit Niagara Falls — Maid of the Mist tour, summer 2007
Go to Space Camp — summer 1996
Meet Shania Twain — (I got called onstage during her Orlando concert, 12/3/1999, because I had draped myself in red Christmas lights as a ploy to make this very thing happen. I was 15 and obsessed… don’t judge me :-))
Learn to drive a stick-shift
Learn to play the piano
Meet Josh Groban — (8th row center for his 3/2007 Raleigh concert, and got a hug outside afterwards)
Go on a tropical cruise
Ride horseback on the beach
Ride in a hot air balloon
Earn the International Baccalaureate diploma — 2002
Become a National Merit Scholar — 2002
Get tickets to the Olympics
Go skydiving — my present to myself on my 22nd birthday, 1/2006
Learn to do a pike dive — during one of my many camp summers
Witness a shuttle launch from up close — (I guess it wasn’t technically ‘up close’, but I did see the very last launch from the beach at Cape Canaveral)
Build a full-sized snowman
Sew a quilt out of my old race T-shirts
Become the oldest person to ever do the River Run
Live to be a happy, healthy 100 years old – at least!
