Looking Back at Where I've Been

Over at Paperback Writer, she posted a link to a site where you can generate a map of the places you've been.  Always one for nifty online thingies, I skipped over there and generated the following:


visited 29 states (58%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

I've always thought it was interesting to look back at where I've been.  Now that I'm forty - well, technically not until tonight - it's a little more poignant.  I mean, if the average life span of a woman like me is 80, then I'm officially middle-aged.  Time for a glimpse backwards if there ever was one.

Most of my travel has either been for work or due to several cross-country moves.  For instance, I really had no need to visit Connecticut or Maryland, but the company I worked for doing sales had manufacturer's to visit in both those states.  Fly in, do the sales training, fly home.  Every year we went to Vegas for the Electronic Distributor Show, but that was fifteen hours a day of on my feet schmoozing.

Other than a spring break road-trip to New Orleans, a working vacation to Atlantic City/NYC and a jaunt up to Yellowstone from SLC, there's been very little in the way of traveling vacations.  Sure, I drove around inside Michigan, Florida, Utah and Colorado - but I was living in those states at those times.

What surprised me more than the amount of places I've been is the places I haven't been yet.  I mean, I've never been to the west coast?  Seriously?  For a girl who, twenty-some years ago, wanted to live in Seattle, not having even seen the Pacific Ocean is a puzzlement.  :shrug:  Maybe someday I'll get over that way. 

I know someday I'll make it to Oklahoma - since that's the general area we're looking to retire in.  And if we end up there, I see a road trip to Texas eventually.  I'm guessing New England, the Dakotas and the Carolinas are probably not in my future.  Still, you never can tell what the future will bring.

Hell, if you'd told me ten years ago that I'd be leaving Michigan and moving all over the country, I would've laughed in your face.  And yet, since my 30th birthday, I moved to Florida and then to Utah and then to Colorado.  Life comes at you from strange directions sometimes.

So, all in all I'm doing pretty good with this major milestone in my life.  (Much better than my 30th birthday in Vegas - when I realized I wasn't a kid anymore, and spent an hour angsting over what to wear to Studio 54.  I should've stayed by the pool instead.)  I've come a long way - both literally and figuratively. 

Here's to seeing what the next ten years brings.

Your turn:  How many states have you been to?  Did you bother to fill out the country lists?  I didn't because I've only ever been out of the US once and then it was a short drive to Canada. What's the most interesting place you've ever been?