All 50 States – the Journey Is the Goal

I got the bug a little more than 10 years ago when I looked at a map of the United States and realized I’d been to almost 40 states – without even trying. Thanks to car trips as a kid with my parents, the states within reach from NJ were covered early. Business trips with the various companies I worked for took me to a lot of states for sales calls and meetings (I always tried to find something away from the business stuff and had a lot of interesting experiences because of that). Family trips and vacations took me to still more states and provided the opportunity for side trips to explore adjacent states. My wife, while not on the 50-state quest, was supportive of those side trips as long as I was the one driving, and we could get her a pin from each state.

There are many ways to see the states. Some people go for a speed record, hitting all 50 states in a matter of days. Others visit the states in blocks at a time, or like me, realize at some point that they’ve been to so many states, that getting to all 50 is within reach. And so the quest begins. For me to count a state I had to do something in that state. Airports don’t count, and just crossing the border from another state is out too.

Experiencing something in each state made for a fun way to learn about our country from the locals as much as possible. On business trips during my time in the extrusion business, I was fortunate to see a lot of the rural midwest and southeast. Some might disagree with the term fortunate, but being adventurous, I relished the opportunity to visit areas not on the tourist itinerary. On a dirt road in the wilds of Georgia I watched a guy on top of a trailer using a wooden stick to push up the power lines so the trailer could go underneath as it was pulled along by an ancient pickup. On the border with Tennessee, my coworker and I detoured to a Civil War battlefield park to soak in some history before heading to the airport. In several states, I planned my driving between calls so I could hit Route 66 as much as possible. My favorite was driving in rural Kentucky and having drivers coming in the opposite direction wave at me. It took a couple of drivers doing that for me to realize they were being friendly (being from NJ I am definitely not used to that!).

Getting up to 47 was the easy part – Hawaii and Alaska are easier to get to than you think! – thanks to some of those side trips. When travelling to Cincinnati for a cousin’s wedding, we flew (from Kentucky where the Cincinnati airport is – go figure), to Memphis for a few days soaking up the Blues and BBQ (and Elvis for my wife). While there I targeted a rural Arkansas town just across the Big Muddy (Mississippi river) from Memphis. It was an interesting drive through the delta as we wound our way through a formerly grand cotton producing area that was now on hard times. We could have just taken I40 to Little Rock, but that wouldn’t have provided the insight we gained from taking the rural route. I must note that the BBQ joint that was my quest, turned out to be someone’s house with a smoker in front that was clearly not operating that day – and in whose driveway we were clearly not welcome. No BBQ lunch for us, as we hit the local Dairy Queen. Great story though, and my wife got her Arkansas pin at the last truck stop on the way back to Memphis (phew!).

From our base in Memphis on another day we headed across Mississippi into Alabama (“for some culture” as my friend from there said). Destination Muscle Shoals to see the famous recording studio where The Swampers were the house band for anyone who was anyone in the music industry in the 70s. We took a side trip to the Alabama Music Museum (2 pins for my wife there, in addition to the Mississippi pin from the tourist center we stopped at) and a visit to Helen Keller’s birthplace. Both unexpected stops over-delivered on our expectations. And we found a BBQ place near the studio in Muscle Shoals for lunch – bonus. Thanks to those 2 drives I was now at 47 states. My wife, now counting over 40 states did not share my enthusiasm for 2 of the last 3 – Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Oregon. I’ll let you guess which of the 3 she did want to see.

To be continued in my next post…..