All 50 States

One of my goals has long been to travel as much as I can.  When I was a kid my family traveled quite a bit, mostly within the U.S., Canada and Mexico.  We took a lot of road trips and covered large portions of the country.  I was also fortunate enough to visit Brazil for a month when I was 16, and in my twenties, I travelled to Europe three times and spent six months there total.  Travel dropped off after that, but now I am looking at retirement as a time to start catching up.

I have some ideas of what I want to see, and one goal is to visit all 50 states before I die (after that, there's not much point.)  My dad had the same goal and managed it; it's something to shoot for.  My family has also gotten used to taking road trips, and I think there is enough to see everywhere that we should be able to find something to visit in any state, so it won't be a chore to go to each one just to say I have; instead, it's a way of finding things to see and do.

My rule for counting a state:  I have to actually go there to do something, not just drive through or stay in a motel or stop to eat, which is too bad because it means I have to go back to Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee with some destination in mind.  Airports don't count either, which means I can't count New York yet.

Where have I already been?  I have lived in

• Ohio
• California
• Texas
• Washington

I have visited multiple times

• Indiana
• Florida
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Nevada
• Arizona

That's 10.  On our Lewis and Clark trip several years ago I went to

• Idaho
• Montana
• North Dakota (good to get that one checked off)
• South Dakota
• Nebraska
• Iowa

Several states I went to for miscellaneous reasons

• Alaska (Cruise, another good one to check off)
• Kansas (work)
• Illinois (work)
• New Mexico (Shiprock)
• Colorado (Dinosaur National Monument)
• Utah (Monument Valley)
• Louisiana (Gambling with Jackie)
• Wyoming (Devil's Tower)
• Missouri (Saw the arch when they were building it, 1966)
• Alabama (Jackie's cousin Marley's wedding)
• Georgia (Visited my cousins in 1971)

I feel like I have been all over the country, but the western states are big, so that's just 27 I have seen, with 23 to go.  Hawaii will require a special trip.  We are hoping to take a trip through Minnesota and Wisconsin to visit the town of Stambaugh, Michigan this year, which will knock off three more states that are off by themselves.  All of the other 19 states are contiguous, with Arkansas being the westernmost.  Jackie and I have a plan to drive all the way across the country on I-90 after I retire, which will take us to New England, and if we plan the trip back carefully enough, we could hit all those East Coast and southern states I haven't seen.  We'll throw in D.C. for good measure.

So I have a plan that seems realistic.  That's the U.S.  Next ambition:  the world.