Oh, the places I've gone!

[dvandom]

   There's a meme going around where you auto-generate a map of the U.S. showing the states you've been to. It's nice, as far as it goes, but I felt like going into a bit more detail.


I'm breaking this down into a few more categories.

1. Places I've Lived - This means that I've settled in and considered the place home, not just somewhere I was staying for a night or five.
   
2. Places I've Spent A Week Or More In - Either all in a row, or cumulative over the course of years.
   
3. Places I've Spent A Week Or Less In - Conferences, a lot of driving through, but I've spent at least one night sleeping in this state or province.
   
4. Places I've Been On The Ground Outside An Airport - I've never stayed the night in these states, but I've at least been through it by road.
   
5. Places I've Been In The Airport
   

   I don't travel a lot for fun, and most of my "fun" trips are day trips that don't cross state lines. So it's not too hard for me to remember where I've been and for what. In 1980, my grandma took me on a road trip to visit relatives in New Mexico, and for a long time that accounted for most of the states I'd visited, but job interviews and conferences have bulked up my total since then.

• Places I've Lived (in order of how much time spent)
  
  
  
  • Wisconsin - Born there, raised there, lived there pretty much full time for 18 years, summers for 4, and occasional visits after that. Mostly in the Southeast part of the state, with summer vacations up north. Ironically, the sum total of my visits to Madison before 1999 come to less days than I've spent in that city since summer 1999 (week-long workshop in 99, week-long conference in 03).
    
  • Ohio - Grad school 1992-2000. Not a whole lot of travel outside the Columbus area, mostly professional conferences and one BotCon.
    
  • Missouri - Undergrad 1988-1992, mainly stuck in Kirksville, with a lot of travel through Iowa and Illinois to come and go over breaks.
    
  • Kansas - 2002 to present, working at Kansas State. Monthly drives to Topeka, occasional drives to Salina or Kansas City. Not much point going most other places in the state. :)
    
  • Michigan - 2000-2002, my first job, Michigan State. The shortest time I've lived anywhere (I was in the same dorm room all through college, the same grad apartment all through grad school, same apartment all the time so far in Kansas). I drove to Ann Arbor a handful of times, and up to Mount Pleasant a couple times. I count the UP as a separate state, I spent a few weeks here and there as a little kid vacationing in Marquette with the family of my mom's best friend from college.
    
  
  
• More Than A Week (in order of how much time spent)
  
  
  
  • New York - I spent two months at SUNY Stonybrook for a research experience in summer 1991. This is the longest time I've spent somewhere without considering it somewhere I lived. I took the LIRR to Manhattan once while I was there, and the bus to various places nearby on Long Island. The only time I've been in "mainland" New York was a few minutes crossing over into Ontario and back.
    
  • UP Michigan - It's really not the same as the lower peninsula. See above.
    
  • Illinois - I've actually never spent the night in Illinois, but I've had so many day trips to Chicago or Gurney, plus time spent traveling through Illinois on many occasions, so it makes it up into the green bracket.
    
  • New Mexico - Spent a week there in 1980, then four days there last month at an American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) conference.
    
  
  
• 1-7 Days (just going to go east to west)
  
  
  
  • Massachussetts - Two days, job interview in 2000.
    
  • Washington DC - Three days, College Bowl Nationals in 1992.
    
  • Ontario - A little under a week, AAPT conference in Guelph in August 2000.
    
  • Indiana - Overnight while driving to grad school, passed through a few times, BotCon 94, one overnight Transformers fan get-together in Muncie in the late 90s.
    
  • Iowa - Lots of driving through, a job interview in 2002, a weekend with college friends in Dubuque in 1991.
    
  • Nebraska - AAPT conference in Lincoln in August 1998, a little under a week.
    
  • Oklahoma - Passed through in 1980 (no overnight stay), passed through in 2003 on the way to Austin AAPT meeting (stayed overnight).
    
  • Texas - This may actually be over a week, actually, but I'm leaving it here (in part because when I saved the image above as a JPG, it messed with the color table and I can't just refill it in green). AAPT meeting in San Antonio in August 1999, AAPT meeting in Austin in January 2003. Plus an overnight stay during the 1980 roadtrip.
    
  • Colorado - AAPT conference in Denver in August 1997. Went up Pike's Peak on the last day.
    
  • California - AAPT conference in Sacramento in August 2004.
    
  • Utah - AAPT conference in Salt Lake City in August 2005.
    
  • Washington - I'm planning to hang out with friends in Seattle if any are unbusy enough while traveling to the next location.
    
  • Alaska - AAPT conference in Anchorage in January 2006.
    
  
  
• Just Drove Through
  
  
  
  • Pennsylvania - A few times in the Pittsburgh airport, drove through on the way to Guelph in 2000, actually got out of the car once.
    
  • Rhode Island - Took a cab from the airport here to the Massachusetts interview in 2000, my feet didn't touch non-airport soil.
    
  
  
• Airport Only
  
  
  
  • Minnesota - Oddly, given the proximity of the state, my only visit has been a single layover in the very nice Minneapolis airport on my way back from the job interview in Iowa.
    
  
  

   And, other than that conference in Ontario, I have never left the United States.

Comments

[liabrown]

I'll be in my cold, cold grave before I recognize Missourah!

If you go to Guelph again, you have to come visit us ;P We live a half hour drive away from it (Stan grew up there and his crazy parents still live there).

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Well, when I was in Guelph, I didn't have access to a car (I was a passenger in a rental van), and I spent a lot of the week feeling ill anyway. :/ Stress, most likely, since I'd defended my thesis a week before and would be moving a week later.