Bucket List Accomplishment- See All 50 States!

I was looking at the map in my planner as we were getting ready to move to Virginia from Arizona. I started to wonder how many states I had been to...and that lead to my wondering if I could see all 50 states by the end of 2013. Moving to the east coast I knew I would be able to get close- I mostly hadn't visited the eastern seaboard.

Now what constitutes a visit to a state? An airport visit? No, that is cheating- all you see is the airport. I decided that in order to count as a visit I need to do one of the following things: stay overnight, purchase something (food, gas, etc) or if driving through the state at least take a bathroom break ;) OR drive from a border to border of a state.

When I first looked at my planner in early 2013 I had to visit WA, OR, SC, DE, NJ, CT, RI, MA, NH, ME, VT, and NY. That was only 12 states! Totally do-able!

Being in Arizona I decided to knock off Washington and Oregon with a girls weekend. Emily and Jessi both lived in Washington and Oregon was a short drive away!

Celebrating girls weekend with some wine in Portland OR

Once we moved to Virginia I needed to knock out the rest of the Eastern seaboard. My parents made a visit to see us/DC in May and we took a road trip with Odin to the beach in Delaware. 4th of July weekend we took a trip to Charleston, SC and visited with our friends in NC and SC as well. One great perk of being in the military is you have friends EVERYWHERE!

Coe and Stells made sure to get in the photos

Odin enjoying the beach in South Carolina

The hardest states were done, the rest of the Northeast would be easy! New York we visited friends upstate and went to NYC for our anniversary. NJ is on the way.... Vermont and Massachusetts was a girls weekend hiking with Kelsey and Odin. We have family in Connecticut so we visited them for Thanksgiving, seeing Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine. Yes, Stephen thought I was crazy but hey if you are only 4 hours away from Maine you might as well head up there!