One bucket list item I was able to spontaneously finish this year is my goal to visit each of the 50 states. I had three remaining states that had been hanging out there for a few years – Alaska, Montana, and North Dakota. 

About 10 years ago, I tried to schedule a training with paralegals in Alaska so I could check that state off my list while combining work and fun. That didn’t end up happening. I had no immediate plans to go to North Dakota. Does anyone really? And I had vague plans to go to Montana in 2020 to help a friend move to Seattle but a positive COVID test and exposure put a crimp in that plan.

It all started in 1976 when I bought a book at the Scholastic Book fair – Fabulous Facts about the 50 States. Most of our travel revolved around seeing family, participating in cattle shows and sales, and state fairs. Almost all of it in Indiana and the surrounding states, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan. I dutifully put a star on each of those states.

It wasn’t until we delivered some cattle to Georgia that we visited a few more states – Kentucky, Tennessee (where our truck was broken into), Alabama, Georgia, and Florida (where my “Indiana” grandparents spent the winter). You can see still the straight line I drew on the map during that trip.

I read that book from cover to cover on that trip, which is WHY I can tell you all about the wheat production in North Dakota (at the time, ND was first in durum wheat production) or the state bird of New York (the Bluebird) or any number of other obscure, only-useful-on-Jeopardy, facts.

Someone asked me what my favorite state is. I have to say California is so varied and interesting geology-wise that it’s my favorite. From Yosemite to Tahoe to Lava Tubes to Joshua Tree to Devils Postpile. All of it – the people, the agriculture, the ocean, the mountains – it’s kind of a microcosm for the whole US that way. 

I visited most of the states on the East Coast when I attended Franklin Pearce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire one summer in law school.  Those weekend trips to Maine, Boston, New York City, and Vermont were a fun way to get to know classmates and where they were from. 

I knocked out most states with three cross country trips with my boys to move cars from one side of the US to the other – 2001 California to New York City right after 9/11 (that was eerie); in 2007 from Pittsburgh to San Francisco; and 2011 from San Carlos to Prince Edward Island. The routes for most of these trips were planned around work, seeing National Parks, and visiting family and friends. It is one of the quintessential ways I integrate my work and personal life. 

I made zero progress on this goal for the last 10 years and this year it came together spontaneously. In late August, I was able to meet friends in Alaska so three of us could mark off Alaska from our state list. The remaining two states came when I found out my flight benefits would be ending when a friend retires in December. I thought I better get those two far away states checked off while I could fly for almost nothing.

It didn’t quite turn out that way. The weekend before Thanksgiving, I drove with a friend who had 9 days to herself without kids for the holiday – a trying time to be alone for sure. The driving trip came together in less than 24 hours after making a comment on my friend’s Facebook post!

To meet this goal it required patience, persistence, perseverance, and a bit of spontaneity over the years. I am so glad to have visited all 50 states!

And if you ever need a car moved across country – I am definitely up for a road trip!!

PS – Did you know that the first woman elected to the US Congress was Jeanette Rankin from Montana in 1917?