How many states have you gotten to know?

[K.L. Davis]

cut
Maine*
cut

*absolutely beautiful, especially the water fall between Auburn / Lewiston and north of Bangor (Holton, etc..), but absolutely depressingly desolate and cold.

I hear it is... the weird part is that is one of the only three states I have not been to -- guess I need to make a trip back to New England.

[The_War_Wagon]

That's an excellent point, about so much of the U.S. to see. I'd LOVE to see more of it.

Not counting my itty bitty years, in Boston and Miami, as my dad bounced between 1st & 7th District USCG HQ, I truly grew up in NC. Same town, same house, from '73 - '90. Vacationed all OVER NC, and went to college in the deep SW mountains of the state ('85-'86, '90-'93).

Spent the summer of '93 in Starkville, MS - great town, nice folks - wish I could've stayed longer, but it didn't work out.

'94 - '96 - Graduate school in Columbia, SC. GREAT state, CRAPPY town (most capitol cities are). School was fun, da' 'HOOD was not, and it's hotter than 40 Hells in the summers!

'96 - '97 - did an internship in Galveston, TX. Great historical city, lotta nice folks there (I've also spent over a month in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area for different occasions, too. GREAT food there!), but I didn't like beaches before I got there - I liked them even LESS after a year there. No hurricanes mind you while there - I can only imagine the Hell that has been the island since Ike.

'97-'98 - Gettysburg, PA! Save for the tourists, that's an AMAZING place to be a student, and have LOTS of time to leisurely explore the battlefield. A mild winter made battlefield exploration a joy, as many days, I had it to myself!

'98 - '01 - Ashland, KY - beautiful spot in northeastern, KY, I got to trapse over a LOT of southern OH and sw WV as well. Other than growing up in the piedmont of NC, this was the best place to LIVE. Our first son was born there. The people have not been spoiled by an influx of Joisey bankers, like the Charlotte area has - I hope for their sake, it STAYS that way!

'01 - '02 - Ft. Wayne, IN - lived on a working dairy farm, 10 minutes from downtown! Had a great time in graduate school, and the people are very down-to-earth. Flattest GREEN place I've ever lived - se TX only had scrub pines and palm trees!

'03 - present - Pittsburgh. Doesn't seem quite as big a northeastern city as I imagined it would be, but certainly the most ethnically-diverse place I've ever lived. STILL a lot of OLD world communities here (Polish, Italian, German, Slovak, et.al.), which is really FADING from the memory of our large northeastern cities. More socially/culturally conservative than I ever imagined, even though the unions and DEMOCRAPS run everything here (PA's western 'blue [electoral] anchor' ). LOT of neat things to see & do here, and 3 of our 4 children were born here.

I spent a month on the Oglala-Lakota Reservation in Pine Ridge, SD some 13 years ago; I've seen most of KS in my travels to the in-laws in western NE. I've seen a lot of the Erie region of western NY, and spent a month in Door Co. (the peninsula) of WI. I worked as a textile engineering tech in the late '80's, and saw a lot of rural NC, SC, GA, and AL. I've spent a decent amount of time on the Cherokee Reservation in western NC, and the campus of UT-Knoxville. To say nothing of having seen every corner of OH save for Cincinnati and Cleveland!

I've never really sat down with a map in life, and said, "Ooooh! I gotta go to _________!" Life, work, school, and The Almighty call, and the next thing you know, you end up someplace new!

I doubt I'll ever see it all, but I try to enjoy where I'm at, and look forward to the next adventure - whenever it happens along!