Oh, The Places You'll Go!

I've always been (nerdily) fascinated with geography, particularly within the United States. I love poring over maps to figure out how various cities and states are situated relative to each other-- especially for those parts of the country that I'm not very familiar with. As a girl from the west coast, where are the states are all big blocks and usually take at least 5-6 hours (or 18 if you're in California) to drive through, it still blows my mind that one night in college, while I was visiting a friend in Pennsylvania, we drove about 20 minutes from her home in Pittsburgh to pick up her good friend in West Virginia, and then drove another 20 minutes to go to a movie-- in Ohio. Crazy town.

Anyway, not surprisingly, one of my goals has always been to visit each and every one of the 50 states.* So I started keeping track a while back, and realized that now, due to our move to Texas and my job here, I'm making pretty good progress. Behold my "visited states" map (oh and the color coding is totally arbitrary-- it's just for pizazz):

Clearly, the middle of the country has not been my forte. Then there's New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Alaska. I'm confident I can knock off a few of these, but North Dakota? That will take some creativity. Some highlights:

• Oregon: Born and raised in Portland.
• California: Lived in Orange County for a few years during elementary school, LA during college, and San Francisco for 3 years after college.
• Washington: Lived in Seattle for 5 years.
• Hawaii: I've spent some time on the Big Island, Maui, and Kauai. I am dying to go back!
• Idaho/Montana/Wyoming/Nevada/Utah/Arizona: I grew up in a family that loved to camp, so we took many long road trips to visit the National Parks of the west, including Glacier, Yellowstone, Zion, and the Grand Canyon.
• Colorado & South Dakota: At my last job, one of my big accounts was Vail, CO, so I had to travel out there once every other month or so (tough life!); I also worked briefly with a fast food client based in Sioux Falls, SD-- not my favorite account ever, but at least I got to cross South Dakota off my list!
• Ohio/Kansas/Georgia: Since working at my current job, I've been able to travel to each of these states for work... more states I might not have gotten to otherwise. And Lawrence, KS? A very cool little town.
• North and South Carolina: Just added these to the list last summer when J was working in Charlotte and we took a road trip down to Charleston. Beautiful!

So my grand total is 33 states visited with 17 to go... not too bad! I'm hoping to knock one or two more off the list while we live in Texas.

What are some of your favorite U.S. destinations?

*I only count a state as visited if I've actually gotten out and seen or done something in the state. So, while I've traveled through New Jersey and Minnesota several times, and Rhode Island and Kentucky once each, I'm not counting airport layovers or any sort of transit through the state if I didn't actually stay there, or, as in the case of West Virginia, at least spend several hours sight-seeing and exploring.