I actually did pretty good on my goals from last year. Ill go over those first and how I did on them, then get to the good stuff, my goals for next year.
2016 Goals
My first for 2016 was to visit five new national parks and revisit some old ones. I did this one! Doing a lot of traveling, it sort of worked out. Living in Utah I had a chance to visit all five there. Driving from Wisconsin to Utah, then Utah to Florida and back, I had even more opportunity.
New Parks
- Rocky Mountain (Colorado)
- Badlands (South Dakota)
- Capitol Reef (Utah)
- Black Canyon of the Gunnison (Colorado)
- Hot Springs (Arkansas)
- Great Sand Dunes (Colorado)
- Canyonlands (Utah)
Parks I revisited (All Utah)
I wanted to hike Angels Landing in Zion this year. On my drive out to Utah from Wisconsin, I got a horrible cough and felt miserable a lot. We went to Zion anyways and gave it a shot. We didn’t make it all the way up. My lungs were burning and it just wasn’t going to work. So I tried it and got almost halfway up before turning around. Next year.
I also wanted to go back to the Grand Canyon, to the North Rim or back to the south to go into it. I didn’t do either of those, but I saw plenty of other canyons!
Paddle boarding and kayaking were things I wanted to do again and I did! Only once for both, though so it could use some improvement. I went paddle boarding on Lake Powell, but it wasn’t very long because it got windy pretty quickly, but I did it and it was still fun. I went Kayaking in the Philippines on an island hopping tour a couple times. That was a good place to kayak.
I wanted to go back to Guatemala this year and that didn’t happen, but I kind of figured if something didn’t, it would be this. Of course I still want to go back, I’m just not sure when yet.
Writing regularly was also on my list and I like to think I did pretty good with that. I couldn’t post on here a lot because our Internet was terrible so I’m playing a little bit of catch up right now. I did write all kinds of other things that didn’t make it on here, though.
Snorkeling was also on the list, and probably always will be because I successfully managed to avoid it for another year! Yes, I want to do it, but I also really don’t want to at the same time. It just freaks me out, man!
And last but not least, I wanted to see my friends more. I sort of did this, as much as I could being this far apart. I met up with three of my friends in Vegas in September and drove out to Utah with my friend Danny, whose birthday we went to Vegas for. When I visited home I tried to see whoever I could and didn’t do too bad with that either.
I’d say I did pretty alright, but there’s plenty of room for improvement. Now, onto the goals for 2017!
2017 Goals
I have three general lists for this coming year. One is for Wyoming, one for Utah (where I will most likely be in the summer again), and one of just general goals. Ill star with Wyoming since that’s where I am now.
Wyoming Goals
I want to see lots of wildlife out here, mostly a bear, a moose, and wolves. I haven’t seen any of those yet.
Visit Yellowstone in the winter. I would love to see it with snow allover. And this is probably a great place to see all that wildlife!
See the Tetons in winter. The mountains are already impressive with snow, which I can sometimes see from my room now, but I would like to see the lakes and the rest of the park in winter.
Go snowshoeing. I don’t know why I developed this obsession with going snowshoeing this year, but I want to real bad.
I would also like to go snowmobiling. Seeing as I’m working at a snowmobile lodge, this is the perfect opportunity.
Dog sledding is also a thing in the area and I would really love to try that if the opportunity arises this winter.
Try Geocaching in the area, if there are any winter ones.
Utah Goals
First, there are a bunch of National Parks and National Monuments I want to explore in the southwest still, mostly in Arizona, so I’ll start with those.
- Mesa Verde (Colorado)
- Death Valley (California, Nevada)
- Joshua Tree (California)
- Grand Canyon (Arizona)
- Petrified Forest (Arizona)
- Saguaro (Arizona)
- Great Basin (Nevada)
- Black Canyon of the Gunnison (Colorado)
- White Sands (New Mexico)
- Organ Pipe Cactus (Arizona)
- Cedar Breaks (Utah)
Hiking I would like to do in Utah:
- Smith Fork slot canyons
- Buckskin Gulch
- Kanarraville Falls
- Buckskin Hollow
- Coyote Gulch
- Escalante slot canyons
- Fantasy Canyon
- The Wave (this is actually in Arizona)
- Golden Cathedral
- Little Finland
- Calf Creek Falls
- Fantasy Canyon
- Navajo Loop in Bryce Canyon
Now for the other stuff in Utah:
- Camp more
- Drive the whole Burr Trail
- Geocache along highway 276
- Go to Lonesome Beaver
- Find Geodes
- Explore the Henry Mountains more
- Go further into Capitol Gorge
Finally general 2017 goals
I won’t include everything on my list because I may not have the resources to actually finish a few of them just because of where I will be all year. Hopefully I’ll be able to get those things going, but for now, they’re under wraps.
Start yoga. This is something I’ve been saying for years, kind of like snorkeling. Maybe this year I will actually start it. I need something to do all winter, right?
Do a little blog maintenance. Things like fixing categories, changing Pinterest things, adding new pages, or fixing old ones. Maybe making guides. Maybe sharing more postcards. That sort of thing. General improvements.
Get into more writing, like freelance writing. It would of course be ideal to be able to support myself online somehow, but I need to just get started. Making anything online would be a good step forward.
Get rid of stuff. I have a lot of stuff. I want less stuff. I want to get rid of stuff.
Visit home in April. It would be the easiest time, between jobs and all that. And flights aren’t as much as I thought!
Visit five new National Parks. I think this will be a yearly goal now, as long as I’m spending this much time in the US. Of course I’ll probably be going to some of the same ones again, though. There’s just so much to see and it’s so easy when I’m this close to so many.
Geocache more. This is listed in both the lists above, but I love it. It’s a good way to see new places that you might never knew existed before you were scrambling through them looking for a tiny film canister hidden in a tree.
Go to Canada. This goes along with the next point. So far, that would be the only (and unofficial) plan to leave the country in 2017. Whaaaaaat? Yeah. How weird? This would specifically be the east coast, like Nova Scotia.
Go on an East Coast road trip in the fall! I would love to do this after finishing up another season in Bullfrog. It’s the ideal place to see the fall colors and I’ve never been there! I’ve always wanted to see the east coast, so why not this year?
Save more money. I did pretty much none of this over the summer, so I would like to get a lot better at this over the next year. All these side trips are going to take a lot more planning to fit more into one trip and maybe that’s how I’ll camp more, too. Only time will tell.
So, those are my goals for 2017. There’s a lot of them. Like, a lot, but, hey. There’s a lot I want to see.
What do you want to see on here most next year? What are your goals for 2017? Have you done anything on this list? What and how was it?
