The guy sitting in the next balcony over from ours in the Arizona condos wanted to chat, and I was happy to oblige. His group of four family members had left Alabama some days earlier for a three-week trip through ten states. “When we’re done, I’ll have been to most all the states. It’s on my Bucket List,” he drawled. I told him Becky and I also have that goal. Visiting all fifty states is on our Bucket List, too.
In conversations over the years people will sometimes express the desire to visit every state in the USA before they “kick the bucket.” My sense is it is a very common bucket list goal. A totally unscientific guess as to how this comes about is that some people enjoy traveling and at some point count the number of states they have visited over their lives. Maybe they even make a list. By this point, they are likely considering the possibility that with some effort they could cover them all. Finally, they make the lifetime decision to go for it.
For some of us who have committed to this action plan, especially as a couple, the next step is important. What are the rules, the guidelines for this endeavor? How do we determine if one can put a checkmark next to a particular state? This might require some delicate negotiations, especially if you are two people who traveled throughout the United States extensively early on before you became a couple.
Becky and her four siblings, for example, traveled in tow with her father and mother because of his leadership work in the church. In those days trips around the country meant kids tousled around in the station wagon for days or weeks. Windows down, of course, because who had air conditioning in their car?
My early travels, on the other hand, were mostly for adventure. A couple of friends and I would decide we needed to see some part of this country, so we would scrounge together some cash, climb into a not very reliable car and head west. Or east. Later I played music and managed to get booked in places—North Dakota comes to mind—that I might not have visited on my own. At any rate, when Becky and I were first together, the subject of our 50-State Bucket Lists came up.
Being list makers, we jotted down the states we felt we could claim. It seemed self-evident that merely flying over a state wound not count. But what about driving through one state on your way to another? Must you have spent a night in the state? Does a food or gasoline or restroom stop in the state count? What about landing in an airport in the state but never leaving the terminal? The negotiation were like high-stakes foreign diplomacy. As I think about it, discussing our bucket lists back then was a good experience for our budding relationship.
Together we developed mutually acceptable criteria for adding a state to the 50-State Bucket List: You must stop the car and do something outside the vehicle, whether it be visit a notable site or look at a distinctive view. You can even count eating a snack or, if you climb out of the car, pumping your own gas. That last one allows me one more state because a fill-up was the extent of my experience in Rhode Island. Later on we started a list of states we have visited together.
It turns out Becky’s personal list includes all but two of the 50 states. I have five to go. Both of us need Alaska. She also needs North Dakota. I figure when we finally get there together, I will be able to show her around. After all, it’s my old stomping grounds.
