ONE MORE BUCKET LIST CHECK OFF

When you get to be my age you find that you have assembled a bit of a Bucket List.  You know: things that you would like to do before you ‘kick the bucket’.

Some people are organized enough to write a formal list on paper while others might read about an adventure and just say to themselves “I always wanted to do that someday.”  Either way, it amounts to the same thing … time is marching on.  If you’re going to do it, you best get on it.

For instance, throughout all of my working years I envied the people who could spend their days working in their yard and gardens.  I worked fulltime and squeezed in raising and feeding kids and tried to help out as a farm wife in my ‘spare’ time.  I was lucky if the grass got mowed and the peas got picked.  I don’t know that retirement should be counted as a bucket list item but it is what has allowed me to realize the pretty yard we live in now.  This earns it a big Bucket List check mark from me.

If it were up to me, we would travel a lot more than we do.  In that way, in our marriage we do not have compatible bucket lists.  On the other hand, because our kids feel the need to live on other continents and hold our grandchildren hostage, he will leave the farm for them.  We have visited the Forbidden Palace in Beijing and climbed the Great Wall in China.  We have also collected sea shells along amazing beaches and camped at the edge of the Outback in Australia.  I’ve dreamed of seeing Greece too but my trip to Croatia last fall was pretty close so I’ll call that one crossed off.

Not everything has to be that big of a deal though.  There are also much more reasonable requests.

Back when Craven became a thing I wanted to go so badly.  I think it was a residual regret from being too young to experience Woodstock.  There was an (underdeveloped) piece of my brain that romanticized extremely loud music, crowds of intoxicated people wallowing around in mud, and no way to escape the hordes until you could finally make it to the road out.  The news reels of the intoxicated/loud/mud/crowds have helped me get over this little bit of insanity – mostly.

Anymore it has been scaled back to a much tamer version and much closer to home.  There was still mild curiosity to see what a music festival would be like.  You know, just so that I could say “Been there.  Done that.”

It came to pass last Christmas, when my husband was desperate to find a gift for me our daughter convinced him to buy tickets to the Bengough Gateway Festival.  She would take their camper and we would all go together.  You have to understand what a special gift this was … he’s not much of a camper, he detests loud music, and he doesn’t like leaving home.  On the up side, his sister and nephew live in Bengough to visit, and he would be able to hang out with his grandkids.  The part about leaving hay laying on the ground to go holiday for three days didn’t rear its ugly head till the week we had to go.  He went anyway, amazingly enough (grandkids are like a trump card in the game of life.)

How was it, you ask? 

The weather was stinking hot and the skies were smoky.  The genre of music was all over the place so there was something for everyone.  There were food trucks and face painters and balloon animal artists and vendors and a car show which all pulled together to give it a carnival feel.  We were camping with some of my favourite people, got to spend time with the Bengough relatives, and I even ran into someone from my Canada Post past.  We took the kids out to explore Castle Butte and I was also gifted with a small rock for my collection from this iconic place – a family tradition.  It was a good weekend.

I’m not sure what the next item on my Bucket List will be.  It’s funny, as much as it’s fun to get away for a bit, the best part of any trip is returning home.  Besides, he has hay to bale and I have peas and beans to pick. 

              In closing I just have to say Kudos to the community of Bengough.  I have been part of planning much smaller events and could see the staggering amount of work that goes into this festival.  Everything from turning a field into a campground right down to surveying out lots and flagging off the fire lanes to run through it, all the way to the gal who would be cleaning the campers that local folks donate for the musicians to use while they were there.  Some jobs are visible but a lot of them aren’t.  I am in awe of the whole spectrum of volunteers, from the top organizer right through to the folks up at 5:00 a.m. wiping down the beer garden tables to get ready for the pancake breakfast.                                               

              You people are amazing!