On my 25^th birthday, I used the money my Daddy gave me to purchase a gold cross necklace that was on my wish list – and once it was fastened around my neck, I took out a map of the United States and started counting.

Growing up, our summer vacations had been a succession of one-way flights with Daddy driving us to Minnesota and flying us home to California–or the other way around. When my brother and I started asking about where we were going—because Daddy seldom drove the same route from one summer to the next—we started to find things we wanted to stop at along the way. The places I remember most vividly were Crater Lake, Wall Drug, Laura Ingalls Wilder sites, Mount Rushmore, Old Faithful at Yellowstone, the Lava Beds, and the Grand Canyon… I was surprised to discover, according to the map, that I had been in about half of the 50 states by the time I was twenty-five. So, I became determined to see if I could visit all 50 before my fiftieth birthday.

Prior to 2003 and advent of digital photography, I used to have shoeboxes full of faded pictures by the hundreds. I inherited a love for photography from Daddy, but sadly negatives had been lost over time. Places visited and seen through a kid’s eyes look different in grown-up eyes. I don’t have pictures of all of the states since some were visited so long ago – but I’ve got my memories. I decided to settle on a goal-within-a goal and get to Alaska by the time I turned 30—and that was checked off in my 29^th summer. I thought I’d save Hawaii for my 49^th summer and go out with bang—but when an opportunity to go to Honolulu for the 2012 Pro Bowl presented itself, that was as good a reason as any to get it checked off the list early. And in truth, I finished the visits 3 years ahead of schedule and got to all fifty by the time I was 47. Of course, along way as I learned more about each state’s unique history, I had to devise a “next time” list—for if ever/whenever I might get to go back.