Now that I’ve knocked off Hawaii, here are the photos and stories from my visits to every state in the Union. It only took thirty-three and a half years… Alaska Colorado Arizona Washington Virginia ? // ? * Washington, D.C. Massachusetts New Hampshire Vermont Maine New York Pennsylvania Maryland Delaware Virginia North Carolina South Carolina […]

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Aloha from Lahaina… We arrived this morning with Aimee’s parents and met up with Mark, Katie, Jack, and Faith at Costco near the airport – a popular shopping spot on a Saturday morning, apparently. We’ve spent some time in the infinity pool, taken in the views from the house, caught a mouse in the kitchen, […]

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Like Iowa, North Dakota was one of those states I’d managed to miss despite a number of cross-country trips over the years, and visits to Minnesota, South Dakota, and Montana. So, when our travel plans called for a trip to Montana in the summer of 2006, I knew this would be our chance to experience […]

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I’m not sure how, after at least four major cross-country road trips, I had still managed to miss Iowa, with places to go and people to see in Chicago, Minneapolis, and St Louis, but I had. And so, during our second trip out to L.A. in 2006, we made a little detour and nudged into […]

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As I get down to the last few states, the order I visited them becomes a little more clear. By 2003, I was down to four remaining states on my list: Montana, Iowa, North Dakota, and Hawaii. The first of that list to go was Montana, which we drove through in the summer of 2005, […]

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When we drove through Idaho on our way from Seattle to Rochester in 2005, I hadn’t been in the state since sometime in the early ’80s, when the family spent a week in Ketcham and Sun Valley while Dad was at a law conference. I don’t remember much beyond getting in some sort of trouble […]

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These states are all out of order at this point, but I saved Rhode Island, where, I’ll have everyone know, I once sang in an a cappella group in the East Greenwich High School cafeteria, until this point in the chronology because even though I’d been there a number of times before 2005, it wasn’t […]

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I’d spent my fair share of layovers in the Minneapolis airport flying east from Anchorage, but the first time I spent any time in the state was, once again, on a baseball road trip with Aimee in the summer of 2003. The previous summer, my friend Alecia, whom I’d gone to school with from first […]

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We’ve found a lot to love about Wisconsin over the years, from the charm of downtown Madison to the beauty of Miller Park in Milwaukee, to the Mustard Museum in Mount Horeb. My first trip to Wisconsin was during my 1998 road trip, the occasion of my first visit to the endless halls of the […]

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I’ve criss-crossed through Indiana – mostly to and from Chicago along I-90 – a few times, but the first time we actually stopped was the same afternoon we visited Maker’s Mark. On our way to St Louis, we passed through Santa Claus, Indiana (apparently known for thirty years as “Santaclause” – thanks, Wikipedia), where we […]

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On our third (and last) baseball road trip in August of 2003, Aimee and I headed south through New York, Maryland, and Virginia towards St Louis, stopping in Kentucky for a visit to the Maker’s Mark distillery in Loretto. We didn’t opt to dip our own wax seal, but we enjoyed the tour and had […]

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South Dakota is a tough state to pick a photo for; in the end, I went with the slightly predictable Mt. Rushmore, simply because after half a dozen road trips, Aimee and I finally bit the bullet and forked over half a day to visit the place, and came away actually impressed, pleasantly surprised that […]

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We visited Cheyenne, Wyoming a number of times during trips to northern Colorado as a kid. In my mind, the visits consisted of looking at giant steam engines and buying plaid cowboy shirts, though we probably did other things, as well. During our 2005 trip from Seattle to Rochester, Aimee and I stopped in Wheatland […]

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I’m sure Nebraska belongs a lot earlier in the list, if it were strictly chronological, but I didn’t work that all out beforehand, so here it is. My dad was born in Nebraska, and my aunt, uncle, and cousins live there, so we visited many times during trips to Colorado growing up. I remember many […]

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Florida was the one coastal southern state we missed on our 1997 road trip; we couldn’t hit them all, and it was a little too much out of our way to swing all the way down. Besides, the car, which has been purchased specifically for the trip (buy a car, drive it across the county, […]

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