I always knew that I would get to all fifty states. I might not have been born to travel but I was definitely raised to.
I come from a family that celebrated the first hotel room I ever stayed in as the first step in one of the great accomplishments of my life. (For the record it was Room 1410 at the Claridge Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey.) I did not record all subsequent room numbers or even hotels. But this story is not about hotels. This is about states.
For many years of my life, I had only been to mid-Atlantic states. I lived in Pennsylvania, went to the New Jersey Shore for the summer, and took day trips to New York. The first time I flew, my mother took me to Washington DC--not a state. I really got off to a slow start. Delaware to visit my parents' friends in Wilmington and to take a ride when they opened the Cape May Lewes Ferry. I was heading off to college and had been to a measly four states and one capital district.
I didn't start racking up my state count until, at the age of 21, I got my own car. I added Connecticut visiting friends but I was still only driving through New Jersey and New York to get there. (5) Several drives to visit my brother who lived in Marco Island Florida netted me Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Things were picking up, but only along I-95. (11) Then, I drove to Arizona, adding eight more. Ohio. Indiana. Illinois. Iowa. Nebraska. Colorado. New Mexico. Arizona. (19) And, I took side trips to California and Nevada. (21) Inexplicably, I returned to Pennsylvania via the same route along Route 80 losing the opportunity to add all the I70 states. I don't know what I was thinking.
When my brother moved to New England I netted Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire. (25) I was halfway there. Maine remained elusive for many more years although I was often within an hour of its border. I'd like to know why I took my eye off the ball.
Sometime during that time I flew to Hawaii on vacation and started acquiring the second half of the states. (26)
A cross-country drive with a friend in 1975 filled in some gaps. Oddly, Utah and Missouri. How we missed Kansas, I don't know. But we did, leaving me with (28) and some hard-to-fill gaps in my state count.
Heavy-duty acquisitions started in 1980 with a job as a traveling trainer. My territory was the southern US. Suddenly, I was adding states to my list every week. Texas. Oklahoma. Louisiana. Alabama. Mississippi. Tennessee. Kentucky (and not just because the Cincinnati airport is in Kentucky). I did not get to go to West Virginia but a couple of day trips from my home in Washington DC resolved that issue. (36) But others remained.
The challenging thing about Michigan is that it is not on the way to other states. Michigan became my 37th state with a plane trip to Kalamazoo for a conference. I've been back to Detroit but, despite driving by it many times, I have never actually driven into Michigan.
Conferences were a boon to raising my total. Even a meeting in Winnepeg Manitoba helped. Three of us state-seekers rented a car and drove south to have dinner in Minnesota and after-dinner drinks in North Dakota. After a previous conference in Chicago, a couple of us figured we were so close to South Dakota why not take a short flight and hop on over? We rented a car and took a drive that got me not only South Dakota, but Wyoming and Montana. (42)
During this time Eastern Airlines introduced an unlimited travel fare. You could fly anywhere for three weeks but you couldn't go home. This led to conversations in the hotel van at the Atlanta airport (the Eastern hub) that sounded like this. I had a meeting in Denver on Friday and I have to be in Albuquerque on Monday, so I thought I'd go to Bermuda for the weekend.
I used that pass to pick up Washington State (43) but mainly I used it to visit friends. Again, with 7 states still in play, what was I thinking?
You would think I would get Washington and Oregon at the same time, but no. I met a friend in Oregon on a separate trip. Not sure how I got there but most likely courtesy of Eastern Airlines. (44)
Desperate to get Kansas, I once drove from Denver about fifty miles into the state, went through a drive-thru restaurant and drove back. Later I questioned if this was a legitimate score. My feet hadn't touched the ground. At a conference a few years later in Kansas City, Missouri, I located another state-seeker and we drove into Kansas City, Kansas for dinner and a thorough tour of the city. (45)
I cannot recall the first time I got Wisconsin. I spent a year in Chicago, so I can't imagine I didn't go to a state that was within commuting distance. I simply can't recall but I definitely remember going to the MLB All-Star Game there in 2002. However, I am sure it was not my first visit. It's coming to me. I had visited friends there before. Perhaps back in the Eastern Airlines days. All is a bit hazy but I know I stayed overnight. (46)
I know Arkansas was my forty-seventh state (47) because I recall sending a postcard that said simply 47. I could have gotten the state much sooner if I had realized all I had to do was drive across the river from Memphis, but I didn't. So, I used a Frequent Flyer. I had originally planned to use the award to go to Maui, but a reorganization came up at work and I asked my boss if he thought I should cancel. He did. So, I changed my flight to Little Rock. I spent a Sunday there. Tip: if you are going to spend one day in Little Rock, Sunday is probably not the best day. I drove around the state but not much was going on. Reference sign in a restaurant window: Saturday Brunch. (The frightening part of this trip was on the flight when the pilot announced that there was fog in Little Rock and that we would be landing in Shreveport. LOUSIANA. I had Louisiana. Luckily the fog lifted.)
I had been so close to Maine, so often but never really understood how close. Good grief, I even lived close. So, one day a group of us took a drive from my brother's house to southern Maine. Maine never should have been so close to the end. (48)
Years went by and Alaska and Idaho eluded me. Finally, I decided I had to take extreme measures to get them--which I did on a trip to a conference in Seattle.
I thought there was great symmetry that Alaska, our forty-ninth state, was my forty-ninth state. (49) I had to fly to Seattle for a conference and somehow figured out how to add a stop in Anchorage for the same price. I stayed overnight and was awake most of it because of the daylight in June. I saw a lot of the state flying in and out. I didn't feel cheated.
My brother was on a ski trip during the time I was holding at forty-eight and called me repeatedly. He kept driving back and forth to resorts in Montana and Washington through Idaho. I can't seem to get out of Idaho. He knew it was one of my two remaining states. It did not appear that I was going to go on a ski trip to Idaho, so on my trip to Seattle, I took a side trip to Boise. Whew! Finally, 50.
I've been back to most states multiple times. I have no "gets" that I feel are in any way iffy. I said I'd get to all fifty states and I did. If the District of Columbia becomes a state, I am covered. I even lived there. If Puerto Rico gets statehood that is a different matter. I should probably go now. Just in case.
© 2021 Jane Kelly
