This past week, I scheduled a two-hour meeting. That’s a long time for me to sit still. Ask Jeremiah and he’ll let you know I can’t watch a full movie. When we go to a theater, I spend more time making up the stories about people sitting around us than I do watching the actual movie.
So, the fact that I scheduled a two-hour long meeting implied something was incredibly important. And, it was. It was a meeting with my best friend, who I also happen to travel and live with, and spent 23 hours of my day with. (I go on walks without him sometimes. Also, we play video games in different rooms so we don’t go insane. Tropico 6 y’all.)
Floating in the South
When we wanted to get out on the road, we had some very specific places we wanted to go and certain things we had to see. Bucket list items. I’ve brought this up a half dozen times, easily. But the longer we traveled, we realized we hadn’t really flushed out a lot of those ideas. We had done Carlsbad Caverns, Swimming with the Manatees, boondocking at Joshua Tree, but what else was there? The past couple weeks I felt like we were just floating in the Southern states without a lot of direction.
Getting inspired: Counting down to anything
So we decided to get inspired again. We paired up with computers, and set out to figure out what we wanted to do, and where we wanted to go. I marked places on my Google Maps of places to go, and Jeremiah made a list flushing out events and dates. The last thing we want to do is become complacent. There is a joy in meandering, but with the knowledge we likely won’t live in an RV forever, we want to make the most of the time we do have on the road. My fear would be to think later on, “I wish we would have done more.”
I used to think I was a planner. After all, it’s how I’ve thrived at my jobs and past vacations. But the longer we travel in our home on wheels, the more I realize I’m not a planner. I no longer crave it like I did – but I still have a sense of wanting to countdown to special places, things, events.
On my phone, I have a widget countdown and I notoriously have something there without fail. Right now, I’m counting down until our friends get married in California in October. I like looking forward to things, even if I haven’t figured out all the details. It’s the kid in me, like counting down until summer break, birthdays, christmas.
Help us out!
And that’s where you guys come in. I would love if you could give us ideas for bucket list things: places, restaurants,things to do, anything. Nothing is too big or too small, and there’s no bad answers. We can’t get to everything, but we sure can try.
Where are we going? Where will we go?
This past week, during our meeting, we got excited again. Here are some of the items we added to our adventures:
The Mammoth Caves in Kentucky – we’re always down for good cave tour. They are a different world!
Biltmore Estates in North Carolina. This is the biggest house in the US and mostly I’m excited for the gardens.
Bonge’s Tavern. Yep. It’s a tavern in the middle of Indiana. It’s not JUST a tavern though. With fantastic food, people tailgate outside while they wait for their meal – sometimes 3 or 4 hours of wait time. I want to experience this!
Kentucky: Bourbon Tour. Now, I wish my dad were going to be with us during this, because I think he’d appreciate it more than anyone else I know. I’ll just send him a barrel home. That can’t be pricey, right?
Mallows Bay in Maryland – commonly known as a ship graveyard
Hot Springs Arkansas – a beautiful national park and city full of historical bathhouses and hot springs.
Record a ridiculous version of us singing “Country Roads” by John Denver at various places in West Virginia. I live for singing in nature. Ask my mom. I used to sing to leaves on the patio at the age of 3.
Bonneville Salt Flats Speed Week. It’s Aug 10-16th 2019 this year, so we likely won’t catch it this year, but there’s next year, too. Can you guess which one of us wants to do this? (Hint: it’s not me. It’s also not the dog.)
The largest Truck Stop in the world – which is in Iowa, and maybe the only reason we’d ever go there. But truck stops are a big part of our world now – it’s where we fill up on fuel, and even slept in them on occasion. Why not check out the biggest one around?
A hot air balloon ride – and we’re trying to figure out where we want to do this. The Grand Canyon? Sedona? Wait until we can travel to Europe to do it?
The Henry Ford Museum outside Detroit- along with about five other places right there including the home of Robert Frost and the Wright Brothers home
If you noticed that I didn’t mention National Parks much, it’s because we feel like we’d like to see ‘em all if we could – especially all the one that are often mentioned in passing like Glacier and Yosemite and Yellowstone. We added about fifty other places we’d like to go – from roadside attractions to museums, from underrated nature trails to quirky restaurants. Another one I added this morning is Moravian Book Shop: the oldest continuously operating bookshop in the US.
What’s on your bucket list in the USA? What should we add?
Speaking of Iowa (it’s actually a really beautiful state), have you noticed any oddly named places? There’s a gas station chain called the “Kum and Go”, lovingly referred to as the “jerk and squirt” by people in the mid west. Seriously. Also speaking of Iowa, I suggest stopping my the Amana colonies. Super cool place that you can easily spend a day exploring.