"The Fifty States Song" - Eddy J, 2002

Hearing about Stephen Fry's visit to all 50 of the states of the US - and the subsequent book and TV programme - I began thinking about how many of the states I have visited. I suspect it's rare to find even an American who has actually been to all 50, but I'd be delighted to hear that some of you actually have!

So I downloaded an alphabetical list of all of the states over the weekend and began the counting process. Out of the total of 50, I was delighted to discover that there are only 14 that I've never been to at all. Here's that list (in alphabetical order):

Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

More incredibly, here's the list of the states that I have been to:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia. (Hopefully, that list totals 36 states.)

Of those in the paragraph just above, I have lived in - in chronological order - Oklahoma, Illinois, Texas and New York (followed by Texas again - but even as huge as Texas is, I can't count it twice!). And although I've never actually lived there, John and I have a great fondness for the state of New Mexico - that's where we got married. in 2006!

It's an interesting exercise. Anybody want to join me?

And by the way, Fry's book is on the way to us (or so says Amazon UK), and we can't wait for the TV programme!


Janet