As I traveled throughout the country with my various goals, in the early years mostly to see National Park sites, I eventually managed to hit every U.S. state. I have done something (not just passed through) in every state at least three times, with the exception of North Dakota at only two. Some of them like those near my home in the northeast, or California where I did a lot of business, I have visited dozens of times. I'll have to do something about North Dakota. To document my achievement I submitted for a nice certificate, joining many other lucky travelers that have covered this vast country:
As a fun little project, I looked through the many thousands of photos I have for a photo of me in my first visit to a state. I documented those first-visit photos in the slide show below. To be clear, on my first visit I might not have had a photo taken, so I found the earliest I could. The date listed is the photo date, and if that wasn't the first I put that in brackets.
