When you get to be my age, there aren't many weeks in life that involve experiencing something you've never experienced before. And there sure as heck aren't many weeks that are filled to the brim with all sorts of things you haven't done or seen or tasted or smelled or touched or climbed or heard before. I mean seriously ... you'd think someone as old as I am would have pretty experienced everything by now, or at least everything they thought they wanted to experience anyway. Most of us have some sort of bucket list or wish list of things we want to do before we're six feet under, but for a whole lot of us, myself included, I don't really believe I'll actually get to cross those things off my list before my time is up. But then last week happened. Last week I did and saw and tasted and smelled and touched and climbed and heard things I never had before. And it was without question one of the most incredible weeks of my life. My son Brad and his girlfriend Shelby pushed and pulled me out of pretty much every comfort zone I have ... and ... it ... was ... awesome. Since I'm still pondering many of the huge life lessons I learned last week, I decided to simply list some of my firsts tonight and share more about some of the experiences later on. Hopefully, you'll enjoy them and maybe you'll want to read more about them in future posts. At the very least, maybe one or two of them might just make you smile a little, and if so, I'll count that as a job well done ... or a blog well written, as the case may be.
Last week was the first time I ... saw the New York City skyline from an airplane ... found my way through the LaGuardia airport twice ... took Ollie inside the gigantic LL Bean store ... saw J.J. Abrams house and private studio (from the car window as we drove by, of course) ... walked through acres of blueberry fields on Beech Hill and down a long, winding path in the woods ... cracked my own lobster ... touched the same lighthouse that Tom Hanks touched in the movie Forrest Gump ... took Max and Ollie to see the ocean ... ate at the Sea Dog restaurant and got some cool coasters ... climbed Mt. Battie all the way to the top ... saw stacks of cairns ... spent two hours at the Maine Lighthouse Museum ... rode on a lobster boat in the ocean ... saw cruise ships in a harbor ... rode on a ferry in the ocean ... spent two days on an island ... peed and pooped in a compost toilet ... ate food prepared by a chef from New York City ... slept on an air mattress in Brad and Shelby's living room for a week (best sleep I've had in months, by the way) ... fell and scraped my elbow when I was almost to the bottom of a mountain ... ... saw the full moon's glow reflected across the ocean water ... flew into and out of Portland, Maine ... went into the woods on the island and took off my t-shirt to wrap my bleeding hand after I fell onto a big rock ... caught Brad's drone in my hands when he brought it in for a landing ... met a medic named Sam who looked like Robin Williams ... took Ollie to see the sun come up over the ocean ... ate lunch with Brad and Shelby in Bar Harbor ... saw and heard the ocean crash into Thunder Hole ... stood on the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park ... saw two bald eagles ... spent two days on an island with no cell phone or laptop ... met a sweet young filmmaker named Wilder ... played trivia with Brad and Shelby's friends at an Irish pub ... tasted beers I'd never heard of ... celebrated Brad's 29th birthday on an island in Maine ... watched a scientist transfer aquaculture scallops into bigger baskets so they would have room to grow ... saw hundreds of itsy bitsy skeleton shrimp ... sat next to a Broadway producer on an airplane ... sat on a rock in the cool evening air and watched the setting sun sizzle its way into the ocean.
Maybe I'll get to cross off at least a few things on my bucket list after all, friends ... maybe I will indeed.
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