Have You Been to More States Than I?

by Bill Russo


Have You Been to More States Than I Have?

The quick answer is: If you've been to 40 of the 48 interlocking states, then you beat me by one!

In my 76 years on this particular planet, I've traveled by car to each of the states shown in pink.  The other nine are going to have to wait until some time around 2031 when I'll be 87 years old and start thinking about slowing down and doing some leisurely traveling.

If you want to make a map like the one above, go to the Map loco website and fill in the states that have been graced by your presence.  Here's the website: https://www.maploco.com/

Regarding the 49th and 50th states, I have no plans ever to visit them. Sorry.  I was born into a nation of 48 states and I still haven't gotten used to having 50 states.  They've only been part of the country for 50 or 60 years.  It takes time to get used to new things!

Impressions of some of the states

 That I've visited.

First off, please allow me to state that I'm a New England boy.  I was raised in a town that dipped its toes in the cool Atlantic Ocean and from the time I could walk, I did the same thing.  

In old age, I retired to Florida and I still dip my toes in the Great Atlantic, but now it's warm water.  Tepid are the waves of the Big A in Florida where it's usually 83 degrees on New Year's Day - in the West Palm Beach area, where the only tropics in America begins. 

Florida really is sunny almost all of the time, except when it's not.  And when it is raining it's often possible to get a bath and a tan at the same time.  The sun frequently shines during a rainstorm in FLA.  

Except during torrents.  Torrents happen often and the rain comes down so hard, that if you are driving, you cannot see one foot in front of you.  Fortunately, when you pull to the side of the roadway to wait out the storm, you won't have to listen to more than a couple minutes of your favorite music on the car radio. Torrents rarely last longer than Bye Bye Miss American Pie, played twice (8 minutes 42 seconds times two).

Obviously I am prejudiced to the great Route 95 Corridor that runs 2000 miles from Aroostook County in Northern Maine, all the way to Miami, FLA.

That said, here's what I thought about California, the first and only time I ever went there.  "It was okay, but it was so far away from the ocean, I couldn't stay!"

Nevada: It is mostly desert except for a place that has a little café where I got dessert. (Dessert is a little something extra.  If you think of that, you will put the extra s on dessert and you won't confuse it with the dry desert) 

The little café with great desserts is near Las Vegas which I didn't go in, for fear of losing money. Now I know that some people love to gamble.  I don't understand that.  Don't they know the House always wins?  I know a guy who won $5,000.  He was so inspired by that win, that he went back for more and ended up with $10,000 - in the RED!

Maine:  The last wilderness in the United States.  Go all the way to the end of route 95, and you'll find places where the deer and the antelope still play, and outnumber the locals every day! The last time I visited was decades ago, but I'm told it hasn't changed much and you can still find restaurants in people's homes that serve wild game cooked the New England way.

New Hampshire:  They call it the Live Free or Die State.  I call it the Buggy State - not for a horse-drawn buggy, but for those flying things that bite while you're trying to enjoy yourself at the lake.  New Hampshire has May Flies, June Flies, July Flies....I don't know about August Flies cause I didn't want to stick around long enough to find out!

Indiana: It consists of a beautiful city called Indianapolis. But surrounding the city is 14 zillion miles of open space.  

New Englanders like to feel hemmed in.  In Boston and in the surrounding area, you can't look for more than a few hundred feet without seeing buildings, or hills, or trees.  It's very comforting. 

But when you go on West, you are often in places where there is nothing but open space.  Literally nothing in front or your car or behind your car for miles and miles, as far as you can see there is nothing but flat, featureless, nothingness. Cowboys might like the wide open spaces, but us boys from Boston like to be surrounded by solid objects.  

I'm running out of space so I can't describe every state I have been to, but I will give a quick description of Arizona.  It's big and it's mostly empty.  

My brother, myself, and my brother's wife's brother in law, and his wife;  got stuck on a dirt road somewhere near the largest open pit mine in the world.  

Oh BTW....there's no cell phone service, or homes nearby, or ranches, or even a watering hole! It's empty!  

We tried for hours to get the truck out of a rut that kept getting deeper.  Finally the three of us guys took off most of our clothes and squeezed them under the back tires (Yes it was just a two wheel drive vehicle).  Then with the brother in law's wife at the wheel, we three guys pushed as hard as we could and we were just able to get the vehicle unstuck.  

The next day my brother and I drove on to the highest town in the U.S.A., Bisbee, Arizona. (you can look it up....it's the highest village in the nation, but not due to its elevation).  

Well, Bisbee's another story I've told many times.  It is the weirdest place I've ever seen.  We got there at twilight, one day at the beginning of October, and there was no one on the streets of the town.  Not one person.  But there were Christmas lights blazing everywhere.  Strung across the streets, draped around the utility poles, adorning doors, windows, rooftops, and even the mail boxes.  
A million Christmas lights shining like little beacons, beamed out from each house, garage, post or pillar.  BUT NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON ON THE STREET and it was barely six p.m.

It seemed to me that the whole town was nothing more than a giant sized, alternative world Christmas window-display of an other-worldly Gimble's or Macy's.

After a long drive we were tired and needed some sleep.  We decided to get a room at the only hotel in town, a place that was built in the 1800s and it looked like it hadn't been modernized since the last hunk of wood was nailed into place some 200 years ago.  

My brother waited in the car while I tried to book the room.  The lobby looked just like one of the hotels you'll see on old time western movies.  Behind the registration counter, was a series of pigeon hole boxes where room keys and correspondence was kept.  

An old guy behind the counter, vaguely resembling Boris Karloff, said (at least I think he said) 'there's no room for you'.

The temperature seemed to instantly drop 29 degrees (now I'm sure it was just my imagination, but at the time I thought it was real).  I made a quick exit and told my brother what happened.  We headed for Mexico where we found a great adventure, which I've written about in a number of articles, and in my book, Hauntin' Taunton, The State Asylum.

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I'd like to share more of my state impressions but I'm out of ink in my figurative typewriter ribbon.  My books are on Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble.  They are just like the Flies in New Hampshire - They're everywhere!  

I've made over 40 of my short stories and books FREE on a site called Smashwords.  Check it out.  Just Google, Swamp Tales, Bill Russo, Smashwords and you'll get there. Some 39 of my stories have been dramatized for Short Story Theater.  Google Bill Russo Short Story Theater, to listen for free on all platforms from apple  to iHeart radio, to Spreaker etc etc etc.

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