States I have visited!

So, I'm totally ripping off my sister on this one so Haley, thanks for the idea.

I have visited 31 states.

Here they are, in alphabetical order.

Arizona - Lots of visits.  So hot.  So many shopping centers.  So little scenery.
California - The Ocean.  Disneyland.  The ocean.
Colorado - In the summer of 2001, drove through the state at least 4 times.
Delaware - There is no sales tax in Delaware, just in case you wanted to know.
Idaho - Boise is a cool city with great restaurants.  Ross and I came "this close" to moving there about a year after we got married.
Illinois - Mormon history.  Bad rainstorms.
Indiana - Bad rainstorms - people stop driving right in the middle of the freeway when it starts to rain.
Iowa - Winterset, Iowa.  One of the most beautiful places on earth.  And the birth place of John Wayne.  And where my little VW golf easily went over 100 mph.
Kansas - Scary gas stations.
Kentucky - Airports count, right?
Louisiana - New Orleans with my mom when I was in high school.  Swamp tour.  Real live alligators.  Biggest bugs I've ever seen.
Maryland - Go terps!
Michigan - Upper Peninsula.  Little Caesars pizza had chopped up pepperoni.  We drove on an island with white deer.  I got "hand dipped" ice cream and thought that it meant it would be like a brown topper from the Arctic Circle, but it just meant that someone would scoop it for me instead of soft serve.
Minnesota - Bemidgi, Minnesota for a wedding, and a nut sack from McDonald's. (inside joke!)
Missouri - Hottest stinking place in the world in July.  Feet stick to the tar on the road. Giant bugs.
Montana - Pretty.  Yellowstone.
Nebraska - Ick to the ickity ick.
Nevada - Everyone only wants to leave Nevada.
New Jersey - Garden State.  Drove here for a concert in Holmdel.  Visited Long Branch and Ft. Monmouth where my grandparents lived.
New York - NY NY what a wonderful town!
North Carolina - Raleigh Durham was the most confusing place to navigate I've ever been in my entire life and I learned that I do not like Carolina BBQ.
Ohio - Got sick at a Perkins restaurant near Huber Heights and spent some quality time in a gas station bathroom.
Pennsylvania - In west Philadelphia born and raised, on the playground is where I spent most of my days....and Gettysburg.
South Dakota - Rount Mushmoore and Flinstone Park in Custer, SD.
Virginia - DC, Mt. Vernon, etc.  I had a pretty good streak - from 2000 - 2007 I visited DC every single year.  Now, I haven't been back for 7 years.  I'd say it's about time.
Washington - One trip to Seattle when I was 14 and had longish frizzy permed hair.  And wore denim shorts.
West Virginia - I was navigating.  It was a mistake.  The guy at the visitors center was nice, but if I recall correctly, had no teeth.
Wisconsin - a quickie.  Can't really remember.
Wyoming - Only worth driving through.  Casper should be called Crapster.

If someone were to ask me, not that anyone has or will, what my bucket list of "dream vacations" would be, they would all pretty much involve staying stateside.

I want to visit New England in the fall and see all the leaves change colors wearing a big comfy sweater and maybe even a pair of knee high boots - which of course, I'd have to buy because I don't own any boots.
 
I want to drive through Big Sur in Northern California and read Jack Kerouac to myself (and out loud to anyone who would like to listen) perched in a cabin overlooking the ocean.

I'd like to visit Glacier National Park, the Florida Keys, and take a BBQ tour eating my way through the middle south (Kentucky, Tennessee, etc.).

I've never been to Oregon.  I'd like to explore that coast.

I'd also like to take a Civil Rights tour through the South - maybe follow the bus route of the Freedom Riders from Washington DC to Montgomery, Alabama making the same stops they made along the way in Selma, Birmingham, Atlanta, etc.

I want to walk part of the Appalachian Trail.

I'd like to see some glaciers in Alaska before they melt, and maybe see a polar bear in the wild....from far away.

Of all 50 states,  I may die only having visited 49.  I'm really just not interested in Hawaii.  It feels to cliched and over run with tourists who only wear their bathing suits all day long for me.   And I'm just not a beach/water/fish/swimsuit instead of underwear type of person.  Not sure if I'll every get to Hawaii, but it looks really pretty.

One day, hopefully, all these adventures will get knocked off my list, and I'll have a herd of family to cross them off with me.  One of my most favorite things of my childhood, is that my parents took us on so many adventures with them.  Well, all of their adventures were with us.  As my kids get older and more grown-up, the prospects of taking them to all of these new places to experience together, and to the places that I've been to so many times and love dearly is pretty exciting.  It's the thing I look forward to the most.  Not the places to cross off my list, but the fact that I get to take the people I love the most with me.