The State Race Continues!

As you blog readers and friends will know, Rachel and I had been locked into a race to get to all 50 states since we first met each other.  We were both far along.  We both had personalities that tended to make lists, and then get serious about accomplishing them.  And when we first met each other, we had already been to all 50 states between the two of us, which meant that, any new state for one person was not new for the other.

So, we had to work on the marital art of compromise.  Me: "Let's go to Maine for vacation!"  Rachel:  "Hey, you're just trying to sneak ahead of me again in the State Race."  Me:  "Well...we could go to Vermont on the way back."  Rachel:  "OK."  And so it went.  We often blogged about it, for example here, here, and here.

And then in June, Rachel got off the boat in Alaska, beating me forever to the fiftieth state, landing here in what was interestingly, my first state.  We had just visited Oregon for my 48th, and now we just got back from South Carolina, my 49th.

We started maps for Maggie and Ben, with the naive parental expectation that they are going to care about it later.  Mostly, we just like making maps.  Maggie has been to 30 states and Ben 27.  People ask if that should count, since they won't remember it.  We don't really think it matters.  Rachel remembers all her state visits, but there are four that I don't remember.  I asked Rachel if, after I get to Hawaii, I should set a new goal of revisiting the four I don't remember.  She asked what they were.  I told her it was Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and South Dakota.  She said that, though there are some really beautiful parts of those states, they can be hard to get to, so another goal has yet to be set.

Eric's remaining states:

Rachel's remaining states (none as of June 2012):

Maggie's Remaining states:

Ben's Remaining states (currently the same as our travels during 2011-12):