Column: Summer Beach Bucket List

by Woody

A Beach Bucket List For Summer

In recognition of today being the summer solstice, here is my plastic beach bucket list for the next three months. I encourage you to come up with your own list – and, importantly, then check off as many items as possible this summer.

Help a kid with a beach bucket build a sandcastle.1-sandcasle

Extend my streak since age 2 of watching fireworks every year on the Fourth of July.

Watch a sunrise somewhere new.

Watch a sunset, with the Channel Islands as a backdrop, on an evening when the clouds on the horizon glow so vibrant a field of wild flowers would seem gray by comparison.

Visit my ancestors’ roots in County Cork, Ireland, for the first time.

Fly a kite for about the 100th time.

Tour the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland, and – as when visiting The Original Ghirardelli Ice Cream & Chocolate Shop in San Francisco – do some sampling.

Take a tour (with a companion designated driver) of a local winery and do some sampling.

Visit The Original Ghirardelli Ice Cream & Chocolate Shop in San Francisco and spoil my dinner.

Do a cannonball off a diving board. Bonus: get a family member wet.

Walk barefoot in cool grass, on warm sand, and on hot blacktop to feel like a kid again.

See a local play.

Enjoy an ice cream cone outside on a day so hot the treat melts and drips faster than I can eat it. And it has to be ice cream, not frozen yogurt. And make it Rocky Road. And add a vanilla scoop for my dog, Murray.

Visit a metropolitan museum.

Go to a local art show.

Spend part of an afternoon watching surfers, kite surfers and, if I’m really lucky, dolphins surfing.

Daydream looking at clouds and stargaze on a clear night.

Listen to live music at a local intimate setting.

Go to a concert at a big venue.

Listen to Vin Scully give a concert.

Enjoy a glass of lemonade from a kid’s stand – and leave a crazy tip.

Go on a hike where I’ve never been before.

Walk hand-in-hand with my much-better-half on the beach where we met.

Ride a paddleboat at the Ventura Harbor and the Ferris wheel at the Ventura County Fair with my adult daughter who will always be my little girl.

Take advantage of my son being in Washington, D.C. for the summer and visit the National Mall for the first time.

Take a selfie with my son and Abe at the Lincoln Memorial.1-fireworks.png PM

Go up in the Washington Monument.

Wear out a pair of new running shoes.

Go for a run in the rain – hopefully Ireland or D.C. will make this possible since Ventura likely won’t.

Go to an author’s book talk.

Read 10 books.

Marvel at the artistic tall stacks of balanced rocks at Ventura’s Surfers Point and try my hand at maybe going four high.

Participate in a beach clean-up day.

Hammer some nails for Habitat For Humanity.

Search for the best taco in Ventura County.

Search for the best micro-brew in Ventura County.

Have dinner “out” from five different local food trucks.

Have the owner of a food truck or restaurant name a sandwich “The Woodrow.”

Write a poem – and memorize one.

Join in on a kids’ water-balloon fight.

Roast marshmallows and make some s’mores.

Catch-and-release a trout, a firefly and a butterfly.

Play a spirited board game until the wee hours.

Go unplugged for one entire weekend.

Go unshaven for a full week.

Do not go unplugged the final week of summer in order to watch the debut airing on PBS of Ken Burn’s newest documentary – “The Roosevelts: An Intimate History” – which I saw the gifted filmmaker talk about in person at a sneak preview a few months ago. It looks fantastic.

Try to heed Eleanor Roosevelt’s advice, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Or at least once every week this summer.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Check out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”