Woo!

One day and two states later, I’m back! I had planned on returning Tuesday, but the company asked me to make a quick stop over in Tulsa, Oklahoma so I ended up being a little delayed.

I had never been to Oklahoma, and let me tell you. It is just as flat as I had imagined. I did see cows, and bales of hay. But most importantly, I was able to check off another state on my “states I’ve been to list”

I figured it’s well enough time that I make said list graphical, so here it is!

I kept this one as a Bitmap so that if you have the same desire, you can just copy it into MSPaint and change the colors to match your destinations. I’m proud to say that Oklahoma put me at the 20 21* state mark.

Little contest: check off your own states and see if you can beat me. The person with the greatest state count** will get a day of mikedidonato.com accolades.

Game on!

*see comments

**LAYOVERS do not count. You must have left the airport to consider it a yellow state

52 thoughts on “Woo!

  • 4/6/2006 at 9:12 am
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    32: MA, CT, RI, VT, ME, NH, NY, PA, CA, AZ, NM, TX, LA, FL, GA, AK, MO, MI, MN, WI, MT, CO, IL, KY, OH, WV, SC, MD, TN, VA, DE, AL
    I don’t think I’ve forgotten any…

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  • 4/6/2006 at 9:26 am
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    whoops, forgot UTAH! My grand total is 33.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 9:36 am
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    I’ve got somewhere around 40ish I need to go through and count better I keep getting different numbers.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 9:40 am
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    I can make it only to 19 but my DH can make it to 21.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 9:41 am
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    Duh, it’s easier to counts states I haven’t been too, 11, have been to 39!

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  • 4/6/2006 at 9:43 am
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    How could you go to NY and not NJ? It’s like a screaming vortex of suck that instantly initiates its gravitational pull on you once your foot touches NY soil.

    And Pennsylvania is awesome(i lived there 12 years and still cant tell if I spell it right) you need to go there. It has Amish people, the Liberty bell, Hershey Park, the fungus capital of the world, and the future national landmark, the house I lived in growing up.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 9:45 am
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    I’ve got 43, I’m only missing OK, KA, NB, SD, ND, HI, and AK. My goal is to hit all 50 before I die.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 9:50 am
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    son of a gun, I HAVE been to NJ. I have corrected the map. Looks like I’ve hit a glorious 21 states.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 9:53 am
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    Good lord, that’s a lot. Has anyone been to Hawaii, Nebraska, South or North Dakota? Perhaps as a collective group we can hit all 50.

    Also, Alicia, you typed AK… which is Alaska. Did you mean Arkansas?

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  • 4/6/2006 at 9:54 am
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    it’s easy to forget Utah. That state is confused.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 9:56 am
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    Nice! yes. As a resident of the UK, you’re like Division Three. Canadians, mexicans, and people from Idaho are division two.

    I added Idaho in there because I don’t think they get out much, so they need a handicap of sorts.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 10:04 am
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    I think you should go to PA because in your map it looks like a hurdle. Then you can tell people you drove right down to Texas.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 10:27 am
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    Tom and I have been to South Dakota, home of wonders such as the Corn Palace and Wall Drug.

    We plan on hitting up Hawaii next year, but haven’t been yet.

    I think you’re going to have a hard time finding people who’ve been to Nebraska or North Dakota, you’d only travel there if you were forced to go there. No good reason to go of your own free will.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 11:27 am
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    48: all except Hawaii and Maine.

    To my recollection, I can remember pretty much all of my trips and vacations and stuff starting in 1987

    AL: 2004, 1988
    AK: 1999
    AZ: 2004, 1990
    AR: 2004, other times previous
    CA: 2006, 2004, 1983
    CO: 2004, 2003, 2002, 1999, 1998, other times previous
    CT: 1998
    DE: 1995
    FL: 2004, 1988
    GA: 2004, 2002, 1988
    HI: never
    ID: 2005, 1996, 1987
    IL: 2004, other times previous
    IN: 2003, other times previous
    IA: 2004, other times previous
    KS: every year except 1985
    KY: 2003, other times previous
    LA: 2003 (my 47th state)
    ME: never
    MD: 1995
    MA: 1998
    MI: 2003, 1990
    MN: 2001, 1997
    MS: 2003 (my 46th state)
    MO: every year
    MT: 2001, 1996, 1987
    NE: 2005, other times previous
    NV: 2004 (my 48th state)
    NH: 1998
    NJ: 1998, 1995
    NM: 1997, 1995, 1993?
    NY: 1998, 1990
    NC: 1999, 1995, 1988
    ND: 2001
    OH: 1999, 1998, 1990
    OK: 2003, 1994
    OR: 2005, 1992
    PA: 1998, 1995, 1990
    RI: 1998
    SC: 1988
    SD: 2001
    TN: 2004, 2002, 2000, 1994, 1988
    TX: 2002
    UT: 2005, 1999, 1996
    VT: 1998
    VA: 1995, 1988
    WA: 2006, 2005, 2004, 1992
    WV: 2003, 1995, 1988
    WI: 1998, 1997
    WY: 2001, 1996, 1987

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  • 4/6/2006 at 11:36 am
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    HA!

    When I studied abroad in Australia, I was talking to people about being from Kansas and how it wasn’t a tourist destination. Then someone told me that North Dakota is the least visitied state of the 50.

    So, within a month of getting back to the USA, my best friend and I took a road trip specifically to North Dakota because of that very fact. Our final destination? Teddy Roosevelt National Park. Laugh if you must, but western North Dakota is beautiful. Grassy rolling hills, buffalo and antelope badlands… it’s straight out of Dances with Wolves (shot in SD, by the way). We spent three days backpacking there and didn’t see a soul. It was a great trip. We also stayed at Lake Sakakawea, and it was pretty nice, too. That being said, everything in ND east of Bismarck is pretty dull.

    Western Nebraska is pretty wide open, too, with the rolling grassy hills and open range. Lots of windmills, too. Yeah, it’s not great, but compared with the billboard-laden and sprawling metropolises elsewhere, I kinda like it.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 11:43 am
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    What happened in 1998? Was it “Year of Travel” or something?

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  • 4/6/2006 at 12:01 pm
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    That was a busy summer. That was between my junior and senior year in high school, so my parents and I did the east-coast college tour, making visits at Harvard, MIT, Boston U, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton, RPI, Cornell, and Case Western.
    That trip alone was 13 states: KS, MO, IL, IN, OH, PA, NY, NJ, CT, RI, MA, NH, VT.
    Later that summer, I accompanied my dad on business to WI (thru IA).
    And even later that summer, my dad and I rafted down the Royal Gorge in CO.

    1988 was also another big “collect the states” year, as we drove from St. Louis to Williamsburg, VA to Disney World and back, visiting 12 states.

    And my roadtrip (specifically to see ND) visited 9 states (of the larger variety) in 2001.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 12:16 pm
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    wait… your roadtrip in 2001 was specifically to see North Dakota?

    What the heck is in North Dakota?

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  • 4/6/2006 at 12:39 pm
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    My grand total is two! New Jersey and New York.

    Though me and my friend play a game when bored in ICT of naming all the fifty states, we are pretty good at it now
    Are teacher once asked us what we were doing, so we told him and he didn’t believe there was only fifty, so we made a bet and won 50pence each, and to this day we don’t let him forget.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 12:48 pm
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    I’m impressed that you can name all 50! a lot of Americans can’t do that. In fact, American’s understanding of geography is pretty terrible.

    case in point, not 40 minutes ago Sander revealed to me that all these years he though Missouri was Arkansas. Then again, Sander’s from Maine; a state where people never really evolved past the chimpanzee stage.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 3:12 pm
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    DOH!!! yup, i meant Arkansas.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 3:14 pm
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    35, In order of border-breaking:
    AK, WA, ID, MT, ND, MN, SD, WI, IL, OR, IA, MO, NE, KS, CO, WY, IN, OH, PA, NY, CT, MA, NH, ME, RI, VT, NJ, DE, MD, (DC), VA, WV, MI, CA, SC.
    Not too many but I did manage a lot of obscure ones (midwest and AK). I will be visiting NC and FL in a few months, and probably GA too.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 3:16 pm
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    Thanks for the favorable review of ND. I concur, east of the Bizzo (that’s what we called it) is boring. West is where it’s at.

    NE is exactly as you descibe it, the western portion still looks like the dust bowl happened.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 3:18 pm
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    I’m gonna cut and paste this response from Mykal’s comment that I posted here:

    “When I studied abroad in Australia, I was talking to people about being from Kansas and how it wasn’t a tourist destination. Then someone told me that North Dakota is the least visitied state of the 50.

    So, within a month of getting back to the USA, my best friend and I took a road trip specifically to North Dakota because of that very fact. Our final destination? Teddy Roosevelt National Park. Laugh if you must, but western North Dakota is beautiful. Grassy rolling hills, buffalo and antelope badlands… it’s straight out of Dances with Wolves (shot in SD, by the way). We spent three days backpacking there and didn’t see a soul. It was a great trip. We also stayed at Lake Sakakawea, and it was pretty nice, too. That being said, everything in ND east of Bismarck is pretty dull.”

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  • 4/6/2006 at 3:23 pm
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    There are about 20 trees in ND, and they are all planted in a row alongside a field.

    There is grass though.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 3:44 pm
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    I find this amusing. New Englanders make fun of Maine for being backwoods and everything. Midwesterners make fun of Missouri and Arkansas for the same thing. From what I’ve seen so far, I think Northwesterners pick on Idaho. Or Spokane (but that’s close enough to Idaho to count.)

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  • 4/6/2006 at 4:18 pm
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    For ages I thought Arkansas was pronounced “R-Kansas”.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 5:08 pm
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    well you just spelt backwards as backwoods, so…

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  • 4/6/2006 at 5:25 pm
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    quote: “…it’s easy to forget Utah.” That’s right up there with “Kurt wears size 500 pants.”

    If you haven’t been to Maine, you haven’t been ANYWHERE.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 5:28 pm
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    29 for me. still haven’t really been to the west coast except for Seattle. Can you tell where my road trip took me?

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  • 4/6/2006 at 10:09 pm
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    did you visit Hanson while in the OK?
    please say you did.

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  • 4/6/2006 at 10:42 pm
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    You cant be serious!!!!

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  • 4/7/2006 at 12:21 am
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    ‘Backwoods’ is distinctly different from ‘backwards’.

    Backwoods = hillbillies = country bumpkins = rednecks = uncultured = “them people live back in them woods”

    In the midwest, we stereotype places like Arkansas and Missouri for having those types of people. Apparently, in NE, they poke fun at Mainers for the very same reason. (West Virginia is another prominent ‘backwoods’ state.)

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  • 4/7/2006 at 12:29 am
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    In some places, it is…

    There’s the state, which is always pronounced “R-can-saw”

    And there’s the river, which starts in Colorado, and flows through Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. This river is commonly pronounced the “R-Kansas” river.

    There are also two words to describe people from Arkansas (besides hillbillies). There’s Arkansans, which sounds too similar to Kansans. And for the folks who take pride in the “saw” pronunciation, they opt for Arkansawyers (rhymes with lawyers).

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  • 4/7/2006 at 7:12 am
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    Wizzo, despite your insistance that you’re from Maine… I think your birth certificate was forged.

    I think you’re actually from San Francisco or some other hip wild city of adventure.

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  • 4/7/2006 at 7:17 am
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    Actually, I did not.

    There’s a little candle of hope in my heart that’s praying you mean Eric Hanson (hackey sack worcester wonder) and not the musical group (mmbopping blondes), but I think that particular candle of hope is nearly burnt out. We need to get you out of the Hanson loop and into the ‘rock your face off’ AC/DC, def leppard era of fantasticness.

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  • 4/7/2006 at 2:45 pm
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    I’ve been to 20 States, including the Entire Eastern Seaboard. I have a snazzy 3D picture that I whipped up at work. but I don’t know how to post it. So it is lost.

    K

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  • 4/7/2006 at 2:57 pm
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    1. I added SE Alaska to your map
    2. I added the “lived there” catagory, a new level to your game! “Living” someplace means that you had your personal and household goods packed up and moved there, and you’ve stayed there long enough to see some seasons change. (for instance studying abroad one term or summering somwhere != living there, but going to college == living there)

    http://www.plasticvicar.com/drop/states.bmp

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  • 4/8/2006 at 9:18 am
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    hey! Hanson rocked my face off pretty hard in 97/98

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