Moving Around
I was born with itchy feet and an urge to drive. I took my first “road trip” the day I got my license just shy of 17. Not the first time I got in trouble …
Listing the states in which I’ve been a resident, or at least the ones I recall and more or less in order: Michigan, Nebraska, Florida, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, Virginia, Maryland, and finally Idaho. (I think I missed one …)
Maybe I could count Kansas and Wyoming for the number of times I’ve been stranded … 🙂
Least favorite: Florida to where I’ll never return voluntarily, and (eastern) Maryland which can be blown off the map as far as I’m concerned. Take DC with it. (I lived just outside the beltway … by about ¼ mile – close enough to hear the traffic)
TDY’d in several others and passed through most every other except New England and Hawaii.
No desire to go to either; YMMV.
My favorite? Idaho of course … and my favorite location in Idaho was Boise County (not the city, but like the city, named after the Boise Basin Mining District of the 1860s. Boise city is in Ada County)
And one of the things I like about Boise County?
This type of official notification … released by the Boise County Sheriff.
Centerville is in the heart of the mining district.
The county also has wolves, moose, and great big kitty-cats wandering around – but the bears (not Griz) are a problem this year; dry winter and summer, not much food.
I don’t live there anymore; life circumstances. But it’s close enough to visit friends … and I can see the BC hills to the east.
It feels like the itch has finally been scratched for good. Perhaps. Took near-on 60 years.
Texas Native (and still xenophobic BTW), then:
Missouri
Indiana, briefly, farmed out (literally) to relatives as a kid, not a positive experience.
South Carolina, Georgia, Alaska whilst playing army.
Oklahoma.
Arkansas.
Kansas.
Visited all the other states except for Hawaii, probably won’t make that one, the juice not worth the squeeze.
Foreign countries: Mexico, Viet Nam, New York Effing City, Portugal, Canada, England, Scotland (some of the Scots I met there dang sure considered it a separate country, so…), and Spain. I’d like to make it to Italy and Ireland, and where my Father was on Guadalcanal, but not sure the juice is worth the squeeze of sitting on airplanes that long to make those happen.
I’m sure some of you have more colorful lists; let’s see ’em.
Ohio, Florida, Ohio…yaaawwwn.
Well I’ve never lived anywhere but Oregon on the farm my grandfather bought in 1942. Spent time in Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and eastern Washington. Been to every state except Alaska, Hawaii, New York and New England. I could live in Idaho.
Alright….I’ll play too.
I am a military brat, so my childhood list of where I have lived is….
Then off to college in Colorado.
During my Air Force years, I lived in Arizona and the Philippines.
When I got out of the AF, I came back to Arizona….I had to return to America somewhere. We had the first 2 of our 3 kids then, and there were immediate benefits to returning to a place where they could have contact with their grandmother. We soon decided that putting down roots here in AZ was our best course.
As a professional traveler, it might be easier to list where I haven’t visited than to list where I have been. But I’ll give it a try.
Air Force years: Lots and lots of Okinawa and South Korea. We flew the C-130 to Okinawa so frequently that I often wondered why we weren’t based there. We flew over every bit of South Korea…from the Restricted Areas just barely south of North Korea to an island off the southern tip of the peninsula. I once landed on a runway built of metal shingles laid onto a sandbar on a river right in the middle of South Korea. My one and only AF visit to mainland Japan was to Iwakuni, where the Marines have (Had? Dunno if its still there.) a base. From there I took a train to Hiroshima…an interesting and sobering experience. Guam, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Jakarta (where it was standard practice to bring a pallet of San Miguel beer to the Embassy guys), Wake Island (went fishing on an old WWII Higgins Boat), and Yap Island where I jump started the aircraft’s dead battery from a Navy Seabee dump truck.
Airline years, domestic: Here, I flew to pretty much everywhere, so I’ll list the states where I haven’t spent a night. In no particular order, no West Virginia, New Hampshire, Vermont, Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska, North or South Dakota, or Idaho.
Airline and retirement years, international: Back to where I’ve been….Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, “The Saints”- St. Thomas, St. Croix, St Martin (on a cruise), England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Croatia, Spain, Italy, Malta, Greece, Taiwan, China, Australia, New Zealand. Palau. You’ll want to look that one up, so here it is.
Never been to anywhere in South America, Africa or the Mideast. Except for Argentina (see below), I have no interest in South America, and less-than-zero interest in Africa or the Mideast.
Places I’d like to go, maybe: Poland, Norway (where half of my lineage began), Sweden (possibly), Argentina.
I’ve been to lots of great places. My favorite diner was in Mid-town Manhattan, and my favorite New York deli was in San Francisco. Favorite Italian restaurant was in Tokyo. I’ve been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans twice. I love New Orleans, but I can’t recommend Mardi Gras.
My all-time favorite destination, you ask? Home.
DT…what made you hate FL?
Oh boy! As I have said earlier, my dear mom loved to travel. From 1954 on we drove the old highway 66 from Glendale CA to Cleveland OH, about five times between 1954 and 1965. In the summer we started on 66 but then did the northern routes so we could camp in Glacier and Yellowstone and drive across the Dakotas. In the winter, we would set out on 66 and divert south somewhere about Amarillo, travelling through the really old back country in KY to avoid the ice and get up to Cleveland. Come home through DFW and PHX. States I have travelled through including Canada:
British Columbia Alberta,Ontario, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, North and South Dakota. Spent two years in Texas. Passed through Arizona many times. Drove through Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennesee, Virginia, West Viriginia many times and have spent time in Idaho and New Mexico.
Since I have been on my own, I have visited Alaska, Hawaii, New Zealand, Cook Islands. More time spent in Australia, Ireland, France, with some time spent in UK, Norway, Sweden–travelled through Germany.
Have no desire to go to Africa, or the middle east. DH prays every night for another few days spent in Rarotonga! We are probably too old now for another really long air flight, but we are content.