A little over two years ago I made this list of 101 Life Goals. I’ve made a few changes since.
Hey, it’s my list. I can do that. And I could change it every day if I wanted to!
But the vast majority of those goals are the same. I haven’t done a ton of them yet, but I’ve done a few!
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Be Careful What You Wish For…Seriously
One thing that wasn’t on the list? Helping to start a publishing company. For a while, I was asking myself why I was working on such a big new venture that wasn’t even on my list!
But look at all the things that are on my list. Visit Joshua Tree National Park. Visit Sequoia National Park. Go to ComicCon. Go to the Rose Bowl Parade. And so on.
I’m suggesting that Someone took a look over my list and said, “Hmm, I think these would all be a lot easier to accomplish if you lived in California.”
Look, Mr. Donovan getting laid off wasn’t fun. And moving for my job was hard. Even as we were packing up and moving to Los Angeles, the fact that it would make so many things on my list so much easier to do didn’t even occur to me. But there you are. We both feel like it turned out to be the best thing for us.
In fact, one of the goals that I thought was an outlandish, never-going-to-happen type of goal — Be on a talk show — has already happened. Twice. When I wrote that down, I couldn’t imagine how or why it might come about, and it was one of the first ones I ticked off.
Here’s me on TV. Both segments are mostly about baking the recipes in the back of our books! But in the first one, I talk a little about one of our books, and in the second, I talk about my own book, Sunrise Cabin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XqnxLbePYk&t=371s
It could be that the other “outlandish” goals on my list aren’t as far away as I think, either.
Anyway, Let’s Talk About Joshua Tree
Mr. Donovan and I, along with our little dogs, headed to Phoenix this past weekend to visit his family. Joshua Tree National Park is right on the way! We stayed at the Best Western in Yucca Valley, because it was close and they allow dogs.
Just a tip: because the park is about a two-and-a-half hour drive from our apartment and an even shorter drive from downtown, this could easily be a day trip from Los Angeles if you’re visiting California. (Just don’t leave from Los Angeles on Friday afternoon on a holiday weekend, because that time will double.)
Naturally, as we drove into the park, we listened to U2’s The Joshua Tree album (which has my vote for best rock album of all time.)
We couldn’t bring the dogs on the trails. Maybe that’s just as well, since there are rattlesnakes and scorpions in this part of the country, and one of those could kill a little dog. I was wearing my cowboy boots, which are practical in the desert for this reason.
We didn’t see or hear any rattlers, though we did see one of these guys: a roadrunner. He was running across the road (as they say, username checks out.) This is a stock photo, but he looked exactly like this.
The park is an amazing place for climbing on rocks, which would require different footwear.
It’s very easy to pull over just about anywhere and wander into the park a little ways to take pictures.
I didn’t realize that there would be flat expanses of thousands of little Joshua trees…almost like a giant orchard. (This was impossible for me to capture in a good photograph on my iPhone.) But some of the trees were much bigger than I expected.
Joshua Tree is a designated Dark Sky park, which means it has very little light pollution and would be a perfect place for summer stargazing or even meteor shower viewing. It might be one of the best places in California to see the Geminid meteor shower in December! But Yosemite, which is also not far from Los Angeles, also has a very dark sky.
You can camp in several parts of the park, and we might be interested in doing that in the future.
But for this time, we spent some time in the park on Friday afternoon, and we drove through all of it on Saturday morning on our way to Phoenix.
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So that was life goal #16.
How did it make me feel?
I felt peaceful, wild, and free…about a million miles away from worries and the rest of my busy life.
Was it worth It?
Yes!
Have you visited any interesting places lately? Is Joshua Tree on your bucket list? If not, what places are? Let us know in the comments! Thanks for reading, and happy adventuring!
I haven’t visited Joshua Tree National Park but I have seen these strange little trees, growing as far as the eye could see in the desert area on the road to Grand Canyon West in Arizona. Pretty amazing. And, I agree, The Joshua Tree is U2’s best album and ranks right up there for me too as one of the best rock albums of all time.
Hi Anne! Yeah, we’d seen a few of them around Arizona! They are pretty awesome trees. And at the park, it was easy to see why U2 found the landscape so inspiring. 🙂 Hope you’re having a great week!
Didn’t Walt Disney once say, “If you can dream it, you can do it!” I had a huge wish list and I have been slowly ticking them off so I know it can be done. In May we visited Paris. That had been on the list for a long time. It was amazing.
I love that saying, Darlene! Ahh, so glad you got to go to Paris…I’m really looking forward to doing that someday!
Recently, I met and hugged one of my all time heroes: Phil Harding of Time Team. Dr Harding is an extraordinary archeologist who was a pillar on the Archeological TV show Time Team. There was an archeological event on Holy Island Lindisfarne Northumbria UK which is appropriately named. Our week was a moving and life changing experience.
Hi, Deb! Oh, that’s so cool that you got to meet and hug him! That whole week really does sound like an amazing experience!
For some reason I’ve never thought of making a bucket list its such a cool idea Bryn (sorry i’m the sort of person that considers anything that has the potential to involve National parks cool), but just wondering would you would consider it a waste of my time as a tanager still dependent on my parents to make a bucket list of mostly stuff that i would have to be older to do when interests have a habit of changing over time? I know that’s only half related but i only started following your blog (that I love by the way) this year and hadn’t read your original post.
Hi Amy-Claire! Yeah, I am pretty crazy about national parks myself. 🙂 I don’t think it would be a waste of time at ALL to make a bucket list as a teenager! I felt like making one helped me learn a lot about myself…and even if you change it later, it’s good to dream. Besides, like I say, they do have a way of coming true. 🙂 Thanks so much for the kind words about the blog, and thanks for commenting!
I remember the first time I saw Joshua Tree. It is like no other place I’ve been. Glad you made it there. Three is a great deal to see on the west coast. Don’t miss Hearst Castle, Big Sur, Kings Canyon, Sequoia National Park, Yosemite National Park, and more. You have much work ahead of you but all fun.
Hi there! Oh, those are some great suggestions…I really want to go to Sequoia, and Mr. Donovan wants to go to Yosemite, but I hadn’t even really thought about Big Sur and Hearst Castle and those sound amazing. You’re right…there is a lot to see. Thanks for commenting!
Love this post. Thank you so much sharing. I have had a late start in life for many adventures, but so long as they keep coming, I am gonna enjoy them.
Suzanne, I could write a whole other blog post about getting a late start for adventures…I know just what you mean! And I feel the same way–as long as they keep coming, I’m going to enjoy them, too. Well said. Thanks for commenting!
Hi Bryn,
Joshua Tree looks beautiful, I haven’t been there yet. Also a good idea with the boots, I am terrified of rattle snakes (and spiders), so much so that I refuse to go camping in California (and I love camping). When I was young I had two things that I was obsessed with; (1) Full House and (2) Los Angeles. I was about ten years old and daydreamed (a LOT) of “living in L.A. with the stars” and also being in the ‘Full House’ house. Those dreams seemed far fetched to everyone because I couldn’t just up and move to the U.S since I was from Canada (also the fact that I was 10, lol). Full House got cancelled when I was in high school and I was sure that ship had sailed. Fast forward to 2005 when a friend invited me to LA and then I got a job as a live-in nanny, living in Calabasas (down the street from Nick and Jessica – who were together at that time, also who I was a huge fan of). I ended up meeting my now husband and then a few years ago Full House came back as Fuller House and I got to be in that house, on that porch, on that couch, oh yeah and meet the cast too (and yes, I cried!!). I really wanted those things and somehow they happened, even though they took a while. I have a new list that I add to every so often. One thing I’d love to do is visit New York around the holidays and skate in Central Park at night, listening to Bap Kennedy’s “Moonlight Kiss” (while lightly snowing of course!). That may sound very specific (and maybe a bit strange) but I love the movie Serendipity and I want to recreate my favorite scene haha… I would also like to go to Big Bear and rent a log cabin in the winter months. We may actually end up doing that in the next few months. Hopefully! 🙂
We spent over three weeks last summer on the road. Our goal was Glacier National Park, and the area near Calgary, Ontario, where one of our favorite TV series is filmed. We were not disappointed.
Glacier has been on my bucket list for years. The best word I can think of to describe it is magnificent. I can’t wait to go back. I’ve been to many national parks and down the Appalachian Trail, but Glacier is my favorite. Canada was beautiful. We planned to visit Banff Park and Jasper Park, but they closed the roads due to wildfires.
Next on my list is Niagra Falls, and then the Northeast, in Autumn. After that, maybe Ireland.
I finished Sunrise Cabin last week. What a delightful sweet romance, a breath of fresh air.