Time to post the vanity map of states I’ve been to, color-coded, because there are updates. Mainly, South Carolina is now filled in. That makes 49 states and DC, leaving large lonely Alaska.

Color codes are the same, and pretty much idiosyncratic.

Green: Either lived in these places or visited so many times I’ve lost count. Very familiar.

Blue: Numerous visits covering a fair amount of the state or province, or one or two visits of strong intensity and some variety. Fairly familiar.

Orange: Spent the night at least once, saw a relatively limited number of places.

Pink: Passed through (on the ground) but didn’t spend the night.

White (no color): Never visited.

Vanity because it isn’t as if I studied hard and passed a battery of tests to gain entry, or crossed dangerous frontiers, or defied longstanding cultural prejudices, to be able to visit 49 states and DC. All it took was some time and some money, and the will do to so. Not everyone has those things, of course, but many millions do. Even so, it hasn’t cost a fortune, especially spread out over the 35-plus years of my adulthood (there’s no state I visited as a child that I didn’t return to later).

Moreover, this is the late 20th and early 21st centuries we’re talking about. Air travel might have its petty irritations and highways and bridges might be in sad need of repair in places, but on the whole the North American travel infrastructure is an easy-to-use marvel in our time. Just think: about five miles from my house is a highway (Interstate 90) on which I could, if I had a hankering to, drive through to Boston. Or if I went the other way, take the road all the way to Seattle in a few days, probably without more than intermittent delays.