A few months ago I wrote a bucket list of things I wanted to do during my last summer in Salt Lake City. Here are my results with links and pictures and all the evidence necessary to somehow convince you that my summer was excellent.*

Summer Bucket List: 2015

1. No tan lines or sun burns
   • Accomplished! A+ for Harriet! I have tubes of SPF 385 sunscreen in every possible location (medicine cabinet, car, purse, day pack, other purse, camera bag) and was really careful to apply liberally and without mercy on the regular.
2. Say “yes” to adventure!
   • The Great Midwestern Road Trip! (posts here, here, and here)
   • Montana
   • California (Point Bonita, Muir Woods)
   • Great Basin National Park, Nevada
   • Arizona (three times…maybe four?)
3. Sleep under the stars
   • I spent two wonderful nights under the glorious sky in eastern Nevada, one of the darkest places on earth (i.e. least light pollution). Without a telescope or anything I could see jillions of stars, the Milky Way, the Perseid meteor shower, and even caught the International Space Station as it made it’s way around the world. I need more stars in my life.
4. Hike to the top of a mountain, a big one
   • Wheeler Peak, NV (13,063 feet)
5. Summer kick off bonfire
   • Yess! Friends! Campfire! S’Mores!
6. Go to a rodeo
   • Yep, the longest-running rodeo in Arizona, in fact.
7. Run a 10k
   • Kind of. Did I run 6.2 miles in one morning or evening? Yes, twice. But not in an official 10k. I’m counting this half-done.
8. Go to the farmer’s market, make meal with purchases
   • Done and done!
9. Make homemade ice cream
   • ….fail. Absolute fail. Recipes for huckelberry ice cream and basil ice cream are both waiting for me to procure said berries and herbs….sigh.
10. Outdoor movie (either at the drive in, or in someone’s back yard)
    • That’s a negative. I was double booked on outdoor movie night, and a good friend in town from Oregon/Canada and her new baby won over Casino Royale in the backyard. I have only a few tiny regrets (because missing larger-than-life Daniel Craig always has attached regrets).
11. Attend the wild flower festival
    • I was out of town for the actual festival, but I went up the week before and took a million pictures of all the gorgeous flowers on the ski slopes.
12. Dust off my big camera, take more pictures
    • Dear Canon: Why do I forget how much I love you?!
13. Spend as much time as possible in the mountains: hiking on school nights, camping on weekends, dinner in the canyon with friends
    • Yes, even though there are not terabytes of photographic evidence, I feel like I spent more time in the mountains this summer than I have in several summers…and it always calmed my heart and fed my soul. Also? My friends are delightfully awesome.

How was your summer? Did you fill it to the brim with adventures and friends and BBQs? Or did you hunker down and wait for it to be over?

*For the record, my summer was fan-freaking-tastic! And yes, I do have trouble sometimes with self-imposed publishing deadlines, and yes I know it’s October and no, in fact, I do not care.