The Story of the State Stickers

 

It all began in 2014, when we bought our big, white, 12-passenger van. Our oldest was 18 and had lamented that the only place she ever got to go on vacation was Walt Disney World. She was right. The all-inclusive packages at WDW had made it the most attractive and economical choice for our family. It required only a little planning and everything was taken care of when we arrived, from Disney transportation at the airport to free dining plans. But, I was also ready to see more of the country. I bought a sticker map from Amazon


Get Your Sticker Map Here


First, we put on Wisconsin, since that is where we live. Then, Indiana, because we had lived there. Then, Michigan, because we visit family there. Then, we had to decide what “earns” a state? Driving through is not enough. Stopping to eat or for gas is not enough. We decided that we had to do something in the state that was specific to that state. With that goal in mind, we wondered if we could see the whole country, and fill the map, before the van died. So, the adventure began. 


We visited family in Michigan and swung south to Cedar Point for the Ohio sticker. We visited the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago for the Illinois sticker. We took another Disney trip (the younger kids hadn’t been yet, so it was new for them), and stopped at interesting things in the states along the way. A friend invited us to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore. We did a day trip to Mall of America in Minnesota. Then, we sort of got stuck. Any new stickers would require a significant trip, probably a week of vacation time. We wanted to make sure it was worth it.


Then, our friends moved to Nebraska, so we drove out to see them and earned Iowa and Kansas at the same time. But, at that point, it really seemed like we’d need a whole vacation to get any more states.


Then, my brother moved out of his house in Seattle, and my mom asked if I wanted to come out and help. Right away, I looked at the map and started counting the number of stickers we could get. 

That trip to Seattle earned us North Dakota, Montana (the Creation Museum here is awesome - if you have older kids, you can actually book a day to work at the archaeological site here), Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and Wyoming. Craters of the Moon National Park and Yellowstone are places I hope I get to visit again someday. 


Then, our son graduated from Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and gave us an excuse to see the Ozarks. We stretched that trip out to include Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. This trip was around St Patrick’s Day and we got to see a huge, lavish parade where they dress up as Irishmen and throw cabbages at the crowd - that is an experience we won’t soon forget. It was also the first time we had seen the Gulf of Mexico.


That left us with a map the shape of a handgun, and two big empty sections that we thought we might never get. We started to make plans for a long trip, probably two weeks of vacation, to get those farther away states. We could go east or west. The east could be split into a couple of trips, like one northeast towards Maine, another to the center and around Washington D.C., and maybe a third trip to get those Carolinas. 

We planned to go in 2020 - but that didn’t work out. So, we postponed to 2021, but the east coast would still involve a lot of closed places, restrictive entry, and limited hours. We wanted this trip to be the best it could be, so we decided to wait another year. With three years of vacation planning and three years of vacation savings, we decided to take three years worth of vacation and try to earn all the east coast states at once. That story is coming soon in my book 15 States in 30 Days.



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