Peter’s To-Do List (aka The Bucket List)

I’ve been incredibly lucky in my life so have racked up some proud moments.  But I’m always looking ahead and there’s lots to do!  Here’s my list of things to do before I kick the bucket (in no particular order):

1. Visit all seven continents.
2. Complete the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in northern Spain.
3. Participate in a flash mob, or better yet organize one.
4. Ride a container ship across the Pacific Ocean while re/reading the classic novels that for which normal life just doesn’t seem to have time.
5. Complete the 50k Craftsbury XC Ski Marathon in Vermont.
6. Write a short story in Portuguese.
7. Revive my childhood piano lessons so I can satisfactorily play the likes of Brahams and Porter.
8. Get and learn how to use a DSLR camera.
9. Take time to doodle, sketch, or even learn to draw and paint. Nothing fancy, I just want to express myself in a medium other than words.
10. Actively campaign for a political candidate I believe in.
11. Go on a multiple-day train ride through India.
12. Attend a music festival such as FIB, SXSW, Glasto, Vive Latino or Peace & Love.
13. Witness the glory of desert bloom.
14. Fly on an airplane which Paul is piloting.
15. Spend time WWOOFing on an organic farm.
16. Sail into Cuba then down the coast of Brazil.
17. Meditate
18. Experience the Día de los Muertos celebration in Mexico.
19. Live in Madrid.  Again.
20. Sing Freude, schöner Götterfunken… with full gusto in a public performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.
21. Start my own business and only work part of the year.
22. Take a creative writing course.
23. Have a job where I can walk or bicycle to work and don’t sit all day long.
24. Wander the world’s waterways in a slow boat: Chile’s Patagonia and Brazil’s Amazon.
25. Learn to play guitar well enough to strum & croon my favorite Woody Guthrie tunes around a campfire.
26. Take a course in tap dance or improvisation.
27. Cycle a century
28. Revel in the the bacchanal of Carnaval.  It doesn’t have to be in Rio, but somewhere sultry, overflowing and proletariat.  Just days of beer, boogie and bonhomie.
29. While away two weeks in a beach bungalow surfing from sunrise to sunset.
30. Recite by memory 25 favorite poems.
31. Learn to play chess moderately well.
32. Listen to my brother rock with his band.  It’s been far too long since I’ve been to one of his concerts.
33. Publish an article.
34. Cycle RAGBRAI in my home state of Iowa.
35. Kayak down the Mississippi River, stopping in my hometown of Dubuque, Iowa.
36. Yo sé quién soy: Reread Cervantes’ Don Quijote de la Mancha in Spanish to enjoy the wild adventures and modern humor of this ingenious and quixotic traveler.
37. Attend a soccer match, ideally at the World Cup.
38. Teach and work with children for at least six months in a foreign land.
39. DJ a music program on a community radio station.
40. Scuba dive
41. Live in New York City for at least three months.
42. Spend some quality time in an ashram.
43. Hike the Grand Canyon from rim to rim.
44. Bicycle as many miles as my age on (or near to) by birthday as possible (i.e. 50 miles at age 50, 63 miles at age 63…).