I feel fortunate to have spent my growing years in 4 completely different and spread out places in the USA: Oregon, Virginia, Guam, and Colorado. As a family we enjoyed traveling to states neighboring our home state at the time, or, in the case of Guam, neighboring islands and countries.
Our 1966 move from Oregon to Virginia was actually accomplished with our family of four and our possessions in a U-Haul truck. Mom documented this exciting journey, which roughly followed much of the Oregon Trail in reverse.
I almost forgot about this one, and had to edit it in! While living on Guam in 1971, our family of now 6 spent most of the summer in Oregon and Colorado, while Dad was working on his PhD. at University of Northern Colorado. Our parents bought my brother and me $99 See America 3-week passes on Greyhound. I was 16 and Richard was 14. Starting in Portland, OR, we headed north toward Canada, where we rode from Vancouver, BC, to Winnipeg, Manitoba, then down to Greeley, CO.
Grown, married, and with two daughters, we continued to enjoy family vacation travels from our home base of Oregon. Both daughters roller skated competitively, and won state, regional, and national competitions. With family vacations and skating event trips combined, we traveled to Tulsa, OK, Philadelphia, PA, Lincoln, NE, and Pensacola, FL, as well as other non-skating vacation destinations with kids and without.
As D.I.N.K.'s in 2004 (kids grown), Zenny and I took a trek to the mid-Atlantic states and New England. Besides being a vacation, it was also a history and ancestry pilgrimage to visit old personal places in Virginia and old family history places in MA and VT. By the end of this trip, while mapping this and previous travels, I realized that I had been to 44 states. That's when it went on the Bucket List - I had only 6 states left, AK, GA, SC, AR, WI, and MI.
It took another 15 years, but I made it this June 2019. Wisconsin became number 49. Michigan became number 50.
(I wonder if Michiganders display that sign in Flint?)
