Coloring Within The State Lines

One of the cool things about keeping a blog is that it creates a record of your life that you can go back and refer to for information. The alternative is to remember all the details of one's life and since people aren't very good that, maintaining a written record is important.

I was thinking about the states that we have visited since soon we will be visiting a new one. Or, at least, I will. Tennessee is one of the states that is on Jodi's list of having visited that I have not to date. I had a layover in Memphis but, as per the rules I established in the blog, Mapping Out Your Travels, changing planes in a state doesn't count for having visited that state unless, during your layover, you left the airport and actually experienced something there.

In Mapping Out Your Travels, I shared maps for both Jodi and myself of the states that we had visited in our lifetimes.  They were both pretty similar since we've done way more traveling together than we ever did in our sad little lives previous to meeting each other.  Neither of our families did much traveling in our respective childhoods.  That blog was written in July 2013 and we've added a bunch of states since that time that have made our individual maps almost identical.

In August 2013, we took all three children for a vacation to Virginia and Washington D.C. (black line on map)  This added Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia to our traveling repertoire.  In August 2014, Jodi and I took a long tour of the West, adding Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, & New Mexico for me and all those plus Utah, Nevada & Arizona for Jodi (red line on map).  In June 2015, Jodi & I took Lyric & Ezra to Wyoming for a vacation with our friends there (blue line on map).  We left a day early so that we could make short stops in Colorado for fun then crash for the night in western Kansas.

So, with these trips under our belt, our map looks like this.  The blue states are ones that we've both visited.  Wisconsin is red because only I have been there with Tennessee being green because only Jodi has been there (until soon when it will turn blue).

In Mapping Out Your Travels, Jodi commented, "I'd say we could stand to visit some more of this country. Goal?"  I think we've done a fair job of this, so far.  I look forward to the future excursions we plan out and embark on.  This is an interesting country with all its different cultures, landscapes and climates.  As it stands right now, Jodi and I have each visited 25 states.  So, we're only half way there.  May the next 25 not take so long.

Posted in: autobiography,family,travel