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Bucket List Item #3: Visit a Museum

Tomorrow will mark 2 months since my 29th birthday, and we are only on bucket list item #3! A little behind pace, but so many of the events are weather-dependent and geared towards summertime. Finding the next task to check off was a little limiting as Boise wasn’t climbing past 60 degrees over the weekend, so I selected “Visit a Museum.” Ideally I would have liked to find a more exotic or adventuresome museum, but we made do with what our hometown had to offer.

Zeb and I looked up local museums that we hadn’t been to before. (For anyone visiting the area, the Warhawk Air Museum about 20 minutes outside of Boise in Nampa, Idaho is a fun visit and one we’ve gone to many times!) We picked the Idaho State Museum in downtown Boise and made it a full “date day” with brunch first a cute new-ish spot called Huck House Brunchette.

Everyone is short-staffed right now and we are always being reminded to be patient and give grace to the employees who did show up; which is why we decided not to say anything when my eggs benedict arrived….sans eggs. 😁 Oh well, the brioche bread, avocado, bacon and hollandaise sauce was still a delicious plate, and we had split a little flight of mimosas to go with our coffees.

The museum was three stories with exhibits that included little interactive stations for families and kids. Here’s a little Idaho history you probably didn’t know and can enlighten your friends with over your next happy hour:

Idaho’s Parachuting Beavers:

In 1948, Idaho Department of Fish & Game dropped 77 beavers via parachutes into the Idaho back country. The first was named Geronimo.

Credit: Idaho Fish and Game

At the time, the mountain town of McCall was becoming more populated and residential. However the pesky beavers in the area were becoming a major problem for the new residents. Trapping and relocating them was difficult as there weren’t many other suitable habitats to relocate them too.

A local Fish and Game employee named Elmo knew of the perfect habitat, the Chamberlain Basin in what is now known as the Frank Church Wilderness of No Return. Issue was, as the name implies, there aren’t any roadways into the basin. Next he needed to brainstorm a method of transportation that was safe for his team and the beavers. He knew there was a surplus of parachutes from World War II. He planned to put beavers into wooden boxes, but began to fear they would chew their way out. He designed a special box that would automatically open upon impact with the ground and allow the beavers to safely escape. Enter Geronimo, the guinea pig parachuter. Elmo’s team sent Geronimo up for test flight after test flight, parachuting him to the ground, watching him leave the box and repeating until they were sure it would be a successful mission for transplanting the unwelcome beavers into the wild.

77 beavers in total were sent into the Chamberlain Basin via parachutes and created their habitat in what is now the largest protected roadless forest in the lower 48 states.

And now you know a little something about Idaho State history that you probably didn’t before. :)

Another interesting tidbit we gleaned from our tour: The unique national monument in central Idaho called Craters of the Moon, which is a preserve made up of over 400 acres of lava fields, was visited by astronauts prior to their mission to the moon.

We learned about early farming tools, pioneer houses, mining, and rock formations. At the end of the day, we stopped at the gift shop for some ā€œBeaver Brigadeā€ stickers to mail to a friend, then we were eager to reunite with our little 6-week-old sweet pea.

30 Things To Do Before Turning 30

For Christmas, one of my stocking stuffers from my husband Zeb (oh yeah, I’m married! I suppose we do have a lot to catch up from since my last blogging phase from 2011-2018!) was a cute rom-com fiction book called ā€œLove, Lists and Fancy Ships.ā€ The main character is a 29-year old yacht stewardess who created a list of 30 things to accomplish before she turned 30. While reading the book, I was 28 and about to turn 29 myself. The number ā€œ30ā€ startles my gag reflex. It’s an age that sounds so much farther in the distance for me than it really is. I feel like I just finished college still. I know I’ve hit the major adult milestones in my 20s – bought a house, got married, and found out I was pregnant with my first baby. But I still don’t feel ā€œadultā€ enough to qualify for the 30s club just yet.

To make the new decade more palatable, I decided to copy the main character from this novel and write my own bucket list to make the most of the rest of my 20s.

The morning of my 29th birthday, Zeb and I went to brunch together at a local spot here in Idaho. I started a new note in my phone and began listing activities I hoped to do before my next birthday. By the end of our brunch, I had 17 items I would commit to doing over the next 365 days. We brought the note back out at dinner with my parents that night and rounded out the 30 items.

And here it is:

30 Things To Do Before Turning 30

  1. Visit a National Park
  2. Stand-Up Paddle Board
  3. Run a Half Marathon
  4. Visit a Museum
  5. Sing Karaoke at a Bar
  6. Do 30 Push-ups in a Row
  7. Officiate a Wedding
  8. Read ā€˜To Kill a Mockingbird’
  9. Try Caviar
  10. Fit Back into my Wedding Dress
  11. Volunteer at an Event
  12. Plant a Garden
  13. Catch a Fish
  14. Practice Calligraphy
  15. Watch All of the Harry Potter Movies
  16. Give Birth
  17. Make Homemade Bread
  18. Sled Down the Bruneau Sand Dunes
  19. Attend a Concert
  20. Swim in an Ocean
  21. Learn New Winter Sport
  22. Hike a New Trail in Idaho
  23. Visit a New Country
  24. Make a Coffee Table Scrapbook
  25. Ride a Roller Coaster
  26. Take a Dance Class
  27. Play 18 Holes of Disc Golf
  28. Jump in a Pool with all my Clothes On
  29. Go Tent Camping
  30. Travel to 3 Different States

Zeb says its cheating to add ā€œgive birthā€ since I’m nine months pregnant as I wrote this list (oh yeah, another catch-up moment for those blog readers that haven’t heard from me in 3 years. Surprise!) but I think it’s a pretty momentous occasion during my 20s that I should get some kind of credit for on this list of activities!

I plan to create a journal/blog entry for every item on this list as I cross it off and document the year through the photos and stories this brings up. So stay tuned to see how we work our way through this list before I turn the big 3-0 on February 12, 2023!

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