Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and we'll finish out today with a call in. Listeners, we want to hear about your end-of-summer bucket lists. 212-433 WNYC. What do you want to do before summer really slips away that you haven't yet done? If you say it out loud, it might help you bring it about and follow through. 212-433-9692. Look, it's August already, which means the end of summer is in sight. The sun is already starting to set earlier. Hopefully, our days start to cool off or dehumidify at least a little bit. If you heard Michael Hill on the news. A little while ago, he was talking about a near 100-degree day still to come this week.

Before the leaves begin changing, and what we like about these warm days end, what fun summer plans are you trying to make sure you do? What's on your summer bucket list? 212-433 WNYC. Is there anything that perhaps back in May you really wanted to do, but you just haven't made happen yet. We want to hear about your end-of-summer bucket list. What's on it, say it out loud. Maybe that will make you follow through or help you follow through 212-433 WNYC. 212-433-9692. Or you could throw some things out there that you have done, that other people looking for a last summer outing might consider.

Perhaps you made a trip out to Coney Island for a beach and a boardwalk day and that was much better than you thought it was going to be on crowded Coney Island. 212-433-9692. Or maybe you made it up to Bear Mountain for a little hike but maybe you didn't. Maybe June came and then July and you still haven't made that trip yet, even though you intended to. Tell us about these best summer intentions at 212-433-9692.

Here's another way to look at it. Maybe you work at a company that gives you some summer Fridays. What are you hoping to do with your last few Fridays off before the summer ends?

Here's a tip. Don't tell anybody. Governors Island is an uncrowded paradise on the weekdays, round trip ferry tickets are $4 or free for seniors and kids under 12. If Governors Island isn't already on your summer bucket list, maybe it could be.

Give us a call and let us know what is or let other people know what you've done this summer locally somewhere in the tri-state that they might want to put on their August 2nd to Labor Day summer bucket list 212-433 WNYC. 212-433-9692.

We know that New York City itself offers amazing free summer programs. A lot of the summer traditions are back for the first time in years after the first years of the pandemic. From movie nights in Bryant Park to the night market in Queens. You know that one. From the Brick Music Festival in Brooklyn to the Bronx Zoo, which is free on Wednesdays don't tell anybody. There are so many great things to do in the city throughout the summer. Perhaps you wanted to see free Shakespeare. You are a little too late this summer if you were hoping to catch 12th Night in Harlem or Richard the Third in Central Park, which both already closed.

There are still a few summer shows like As You Like It to see before fall begins. Are any of these activities on your end-of-summer bucket list. Let us know at 212-433 WNYC 212-433-9692. Have you made it to the beach, the Rockaways, the Jersey Shore, Long Island beaches, forget about the sharks. We've been seeing pictures and videos on social media of dolphins enjoying the water and people standing up and giving dolphins standing ovations. Ovations did you hear about that? August is a good time to join them. We can go both tracks on this. One, what is on your summer bucket list that you haven't yet gotten to do? Say it out loud and maybe it will help you follow through or what in the immediate region, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut have you done this summer that people might put on their summer bucket list as they're figuring out how to spend maybe one last summer Friday or one last summer Saturday or one last summer Sunday or even a Monday through Thursday 212-433 WNYC. We'll take your calls after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. All right, what's on your summer bucket list that you haven't gotten to do yet here on August 2nd. Adam in Manhattan. We'll start with you. Hey, there. You got something for us on that bucket list, right?

Adam: Yes, I do. Brian, you're a treasure, by the way. I would like to go clamming on the Shinnecock Bay out in eastern Long Island. I see people doing it when I drive by and I want to do it.

Brian Lehrer: Have you ever done it?

Adam: No, I have not.

Brian Lehrer: What do you do? What does it look like? You weighed in up to your ankles, and then you bend down and look down? Or how does that work?

Adam: Some people use a rake. I also see people who clam with their feet so they just feel with their feet. They have a bucket and then they put the clams in the bucket.

Brian Lehrer: Adam, I hope you get to do it. Go do it. Daniel in Mantoloking in New Jersey you are on WNYC. Hi, Daniel.

Daniel: Hello. I'd like to get some work done on my sailboat.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, you have a sailboat. What kind of work does it need?

Daniel: That's a good question. A lot actually. It could probably stand to be painted. The masts need to go up, windows need to be put in. Quite a bit.

Brian Lehrer: Now you told our screener I think that it's a wooden sailboat. Are sailboats made out of different things? Is wood unusual these days? I don't know.

Daniel: Yes. I believe it's fair to say that fiberglass is the most common building material for recreational boats these days.

Brian Lehrer: Because it's light. Well, where do you like to sail?

Daniel: I'm in Mantoloking down at the Jersey Shore right now. Most of the sailing I've done has been with teams in the Hudson, in the bay under the Statue of Liberty.

Brian Lehrer: Nice, Daniel. Thanks a lot. Get that work done. It feels so good when you have something you love, like a sailboat to do that painting, to spruce up the masthead, whatever it is on whatever your beloved thing is. Daniel, hope you got to do it. Genevieve in Williamsburg. You're on WNYC. Hi, Genevieve.

Genevieve: Hi. I just wanted to talk about Marsha P. Johnson State Park. I think they finished it up pretty recently like redoing some stuff to it and it's right next to Bushwick Inlet Park, and it's just so beautiful. You can get really up close to the water and it's great to cool down and there are really nice public restrooms there also.

Brian Lehrer: That's a tip ,right?

Genevieve: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: For people. The Marsha P. Johnson State Park in Williamsburg. Would you call it in Williamsburg or more Bushwick?

Genevieve: I would call it North Williamsburg-ish.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. All right.

Genevieve: I would say.

Brian Lehrer: Now open folks and ready for you. Jonass in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hey, Jonass, what's on your bucket list? You got something, right?

Jonass: I'm going to ride my bicycle to Penn Station one day, take the train to Albany, and then ride the Empire State Trail back to Battery Park.

Brian Lehrer: That is so cool. When I lived in Albany, I used to fantasize about riding my bike back to New York to visit my parents. At that time, there was not the Empire State Trail. I wonder if you know how developed it is. How off-road can you stay riding from Albany all the way back to the city.

Jonass: I don't know. I rode the Erie Canal trail a couple of years ago. That was like 75%, 80% off-road. I'm hoping it's roughly equivalent, but I'm an adult and I'm riding by myself. Obviously-

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Brian Lehrer: I'll tell you one thing that I did just last weekend. A little bit along those lines. I'm a big fan of rail trails, the Rails to Trails movement.

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Abandoned railroad beds. They turn them into miles and miles and miles long bike routes and pedestrian routes, too. I did one in New Paltz over the weekend. It's so great because they're either paved or hard dirt. They're off-road and you can just get out there and bike and not worry about cars and it's so cool.

Jonass: You need to ride the gap trail from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland and I think it's the C&O canal trail into Washington DC is the greatest Rail Trail trip I've ever taken.

Brian Lehrer: Cool. I never even heard of those. I will check them out. Ken Murray in Hell’s Kitchen you’re on WNYC. Hi Ken Murray, what's on your bucket list?

Ken Murray: Hi Brian, it's nice to talk to you again. I am very excited to go to DiscOasis at Wollman Rink in Central Park. Nile Rodgers curated the music, it is an immersive experience and I just want to make sure everybody knows about it.

Brian Lehrer: Sounds awesome. Carolyn Brooklyn, I think has not a bucket list item but a tip. Carol, you're on WNYC, hi there.

Carolyn: Hi. Well, it is a bucket list and a tip. I did this last year alone. My bucket list is to bring my friends to the Bronx Treetop Adventure up at the Bronx Zoo. The first thing you do is have a zip line across the Bronx River Road and if that's not enough ziplining for you, you can do the Treetop Adventure where you climb up into the trees and you're always cabled in with carabiner clips so you're always safe and you do like the craziest obstacle course swinging on a rope like Tarzan and you're climbing up a rope spider web.

Some are very simple and some are really exhausting. If you do the very advanced one, you can actually fall, you do a trust fall like from 50 feet up backwards to the ground and it is wonderful. Of course, this is all Bronx Zoo. They are part of the conservation society so all your money goes to a really, really good place and I absolutely loved it and they were so nice there.

Brian Lehrer: Boy, I think of these zip lines as being like in the Rocky Mountains or something, you're telling me there's one across the Bronx River?

Carolyn: There's one crossing the Bronx River right in the Bronx Zoo. Just go on up, just take the train up and it is right there. It's actually pretty close to the train station. I think the four or the five goes up there and it's so fast it's about an hour and a half to do the whole course. They let me stay longer because I was basically crazy and doing the hardest one [chuckles] but it was just a wonderful experience.

Brian Lehrer: That's great, Carol, thanks for sharing that. John in Hell's Kitchen, what's on your summer bucket list?

John: Hey, Brian, thanks for taking my call. I really want to go up to the Berkshires to Pittsfield and see my wife in a play. She's an actress. Unfortunately, I'm still at almost two weeks in lockdown with positive tests for COVID.

Brian Lehrer: Ouch.

John: There's a lot I want to do but I particularly want to see her play The Vampire Killer, Van Helsing, and Dracula. There are many of us who are still out here in isolation, who are in lockdown and I'm in semi-isolation because again, I'm almost two weeks out but still testing faintly positive. I just want to remind people to keep their hearts and minds on those of us who are still isolating, who are still contracting this. It hit me really hard even though I'm boosted and vaxxed and I picked it up on an Amtrak train. Also, people be careful.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. A good friend of mine just went through two weeks of testing positive and finally, that line got fainter and fainter and cleared. That's the longest I know of is my friend and now you so if you're at two weeks, it sounds like you'll probably be pretty clear pretty soon. Because some of our listeners go up to the Berkshires, to the Pittsfield area, do you want to shout out the venue where your wife is performing?

John: Sure, I’d love this. Fantastic. It's a production of Dracula being directed by David Auburn who wrote Proof at the Berkshire Theatre Group at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, Mass. Again, my wife, Jennifer Van Dyck is playing Van Helsing which is usually a male role. The pronouns don't really change much in it and this is the first production with a woman playing the vampire hunter.

Brian Lehrer: John, thank you so much. That’s awesome.

John: Even doubly exciting. Brian, I want to thank you. In isolation, you've been my friend every morning in the past two weeks so thank you for that.

Brian Lehrer: Happy to be your friend and hope you don't have to use me as that friend in isolation for even one more day. Katie in Larchmont we have 30 seconds you’re going to get the last one. Is it a bucket list item?

Katie: Awesome. Yes. Well, not a bucket list exactly. The group I sing with in the city in the West Village Chorale is doing weekly summer things on the next three Mondays at Judson Memorial Church on Monday nights. You can come in, it's air-conditioned, we lend you a score, we've got the conductor, and you can go ahead sing through classic choral work. Last night we had 75 people for the Messiah, it was awesome.

Brian Lehrer: Katie, that sounds awesome, and thanks for all those awesome bucket list shoutouts to yourself. Hope you get to do all those things and new ideas for things people can do between now and the end of summer.

That's the Brian Lehrer Show for today. Produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Zach Gottehrer-Cohen. Our interns Anna Venarchik, Amanda Rosane, and Emily Löwinger. Juliana Fonda at the audio controls. I'm Brian Lehrer.

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