With special thanks to my good friend Kelly J. for inspiring me to do this based on her similar blog entry here’s my map of our fine country with all 26 states that I’ve set foot in or landed in (even if I only spent time at an airport).
Now Hear This. It’s On My Mind (Pure Energy):
1. Tropical Storm Fay flooded Florida from Key West to Tallahassee, Hurricane Gustav brushed us aside this past weekend en route to the U.S. Gulf Coast, and now we’ve got Tropical Storms Hanna, Ike, and Josephine lined-up across the Atlantic. I’ve never been concerned with Hanna. She could disrupt plans further up the Atlantic coast of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Ike could be flirting with the southeastern Bahamas and the north coast of Cuba on Sunday and Monday as a Category 2 or 3 Hurricane. I’m watching Ike closely. You should too.
2. Yesterday an 18-year relationship ended. I’m talking of course about my relationship with State Farm Insurance. They insured all 4 of my cars during this time-period. Effective yesterday morning at 12:01 AM GEICO became my automobile insurer. Hail to the gecko !
3. Why do I not shop for clothes at Hollister ? It’s because I’m not 18-years-old, I don’t surf the wild waves totally bodacious dude, and the strong SoCal smell of that place frankly makes me wanna sneeze !
4. Michael Jackson recently turned 50-years-old, and he stated that ‘the best was yet to come’. I doubt it. He was cool 25-years-old. He was still cranking out the hits 15 years ago. The best came and went. It’s as clear as “Black Or White” (my all-time favourite song of his).
5. Florida City (where all of the food is) is the fastest-growing city in Miami-Dade County this year as far as property values are concerned. In fact it’s one of only three cities in the County to show any growth at all this year amidst the current economic slowdown. Read all about it.
26 states (and the District Of Columbia) lie entirely east of the Great Mississippi River, and I’ve set foot in all but a handful of them.
Here are the TOP 5 states that I have not set foot in, but would love to some day:
5. Vermont – I’d love to stay at the historic Stratford Inn and hang out for awhile with Dick and Joanna, Michael and Stephanie, George, Larry, his brother Darryl, and his other brother Darryl. (I’m sure that Vermont is just like “Newhart“.)
4. Rhode Island – As a little kid I ventured into the southeastern corner of Delaware every Summer that we visited Ocean City Maryland (just across the border). Delaware’s the 2ND smallest state in the Union. I want to visit the tiniest state of them all.
3. Massachusetts – I know a lot of people from Boston. The’re mostly on TV and in the movies. I’d like to be a tourist for a long weekend in the big city that they all came from.
2. Maine – I’ve been to the southern terminus of both I-95 and U.S. 1 many times. I’d love to see where it all starts. I’d also love to visit Eastport and watch the first sunrise of the nation.
1. New York – In my 41+ years on God’s Great Earth I’ve never been to the city so nice they named it twice – New York, New York. I want to spend an entire week there and just sightsee !
I’m back home. Here’s a look back at my recent road-trip / vacation:
1. From start (early Thursday morning) to finish (mid Sunday afternoon) I drove a grand total of 764 miles from here to there and then back again. That’s 372 miles on Thursday, 0 miles on Friday, 23 miles on Saturday, and 369 miles on Sunday.
2. I filled up with gas twice on this road-trip – both times at the same exact Chevron station on North Wickam Road just off I-95 north of Melbourne. I basically filled up there on Thursday afternoon, drove 326.6 miles, and then filled up there again on this Sunday afternoon. I paid $3.679 per gallon both times. I averaged about 29 MPG on this road-trip. That’s down a bit from previous road-trips, but then again my car is middle-aged now (over 5-years-old).
3. Much of East-Central Florida received anywhere from a foot to two feet of rain due to Tropical Storm Fay a couple of weeks ago. It looks that way along I-95. The median and road sides are green, lucious, and overgrown with a lot of standing water all around. I’ve seen this area during brush fire season in the middle of a severe drought. What a complete turnaround from that time !
4. My fellow drivers up and down I-95 were unusually polite during this road-trip. There were the usual suspects – such as the speeders and the tailgaters – but all-in-all it was a pleasant drive to and fro the northeast of Florida. Traffic was light to moderate during much of the trip on Thursday and on Sunday. I expected it to be much heavier due to the holiday weekend.
5. My longtime ‘old-school’ Sunpass device that I’ve had for all of these years CRASHED at the start of my road-trip on Thursday. It worked fine for the first tollbooth north of Homestead on Florida’s Turnpike, but then it stopped working after that. It basically burned up (internally) in the hot sun. I had to use cash from that point forward. I was rocking the dedicated change lanes like it was 1999 !
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