States I have never visited:
- Alaska
- Louisiana
- Mississippi
- North Dakota
- Vermont
I'm planning to cross Louisiana off the list later this year. Maybe I'll pop over to Mississippi while I'm there. Vermont and Alaska are both pretty, so they could be targets of photography expeditions someday.
But what about North Dakota? What excuse will I ever have for visiting Fargo?
North Dakota is basically like South Dakota, only without all the fun.
You’re not missing anything.
Definitely visit Mississippi first before Louisiana. It’s always better when every day of a trip is better than the one before it.
The Badlands. Visited them long ago at age 17 when I hitchhiked from ocean to ocean and back. 200 years from now most of the world will look like that but for now it's truly impressive, in a Sauron Got the Ring and Conquered Middle Earth sense.
Was going to say that, and it is truly impressive, but they are in South Dakota. The Big Overlook is in ND: https://www.nps.gov/places/big-badlands-overlook.htm
Don't forget that Hoople "tatertown" ND is the home of University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, the fictional university created by Peter Schickele.
Wow, I haven't heard that name in years. Maybe I'll dig up Concerto for Horn and Hardart.
After 15 years, you can finally meet me.
You could visit the wells in Fargo.
I am truly amazed at two on that list:
(1) Louisiana? Good grief, you've never been to New Orleans???
(2) Vermont--I have a hard time imagining you've been to Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, yet never had occasion to wander in Vermont.
Vermont is the one state in New England that you have to deliberately aim for even if you're in the vicinity. Okay, Maine is kind of the end of the line, but Vermont is off to the northwest where nobody passes through unless they're going to Montreal (or Albany, but who wants to go there?).
Lake Champlain and surrounding countryside are beautiful and worth aiming for. Skiers from NY apparently go to central Vermont in large numbers, but I wouldn't know-- I'm a shoveler, not a skier.
If you take I-91 up to visit NH, it runs on the VT side of the CT river.
Vermont does have great skiing if you're into that. I've done Stowe for that reason.
Yeah the only time I visited Vermont was to go skiing at Kilington. I did have some buddies in Montreal who used to regularly head for shopping in Vermont.
Covered bridges photo tour of Vermont!
I crossed North Dakota off my list during a trip to a conference in Minneapolis. My employer was paying for the conference trip, so it wasn't much for me to add a couple days of vacation and a flight out to the Dakotas.
I didn't go to Fargo. I visited Theodore Roosevelt's cabin in Medora, the reconstructed Fort Mandan from the Lewis & Clark expedition, and the state capitol in Bismarck. And a lot of driving through flat and utterly deserted country in between.
Best get your trips in sooner rather than when we finally get things like a carbon tax and levies against frequent fliers to try to lessen the very thing you are proposing to do. Travel on a whim.
I have learned my great-grandfather was a notorious Fargo slumlord a hundred years ago.
Aside from that there's probably a place where you pay someone to let you shoot a Buffalo, cut out it's heart and roast it on a spit, like grandad used to do.
Skip Mississippi, go to New Orleans which I too I’m shocked you’d never been too. Vermont is odd, as said above if you hit NH and Maine or even upstate NY you’ve basically seen Vermont. It’s more of the same, charming towns and covered bridges. Less failing Northeast Industrial Cities though then NY, Mass or Maine. If you don’t ski though you have not missed anything.
Grain Belt beer in Fargo? Otherwise I got nothin'
ND has one of the most interesting state capitol buildings in the lower 48. Unlike all the other "dome centered on a layer cake" designs it is a 1930s-modern tower with really gorgeous wood interiors. Depression era, lots of craftsmen unemployed, materials were cheap. So if you collect state capitols, this would be a reason to visit ND.
Never heard "dome on a layer cake" before but love it.
The LA capitol in Baton Rouse is somewhat along those lines. Ugliest state capitol: Juneau, Alaska-- the building is a dingy, non-descript office building.
LA occurred to me too, but only for the exterior-- stone-clad office tower. The lobby is marbled and a highlight of the tour is the bullet holes carefully left unrepaired as a monument to Huey Long's assassination there.
To continue the firearm theme, OH's is like the layer cake but instead of a dome it has a turret, sort of like the Monitor from the Hampton Roads naval battle (only tiny). Didn't notice any cannon in the windows up there, though.
Yes, the OH capitol looks like they ran out of money before they could build the dome.
Time your trip to get sunflower fields in bloom. https://www.ndtourism.com/best-places/let-amazing-sunflower-put-smile-your-face
Also the Knife River Interpretive site and Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the ND portion of the badlands.
https://www.nps.gov/knri/index.htm
https://www.nps.gov/thro/index.htm
Also, if you want to see the impact that fracking has had on a local area, go to the town of Williston and the rest of the NW corner of the state.
I was going to say the world's largest prairie dog, but it's in South Dakota. Then I thought of the world’s largest prairie chicken, but it's in Minnesota. But the world's largest buffalo is in Jamestown, ND.
North Dakota is a good place to see both Baird's Sparrow and Yellow Rail on their breeding grounds. Well, at least hear Yellow Rail; they're awfully hard to get a decent look at.
The International Peace Garden, straddling the border between ND and Manitoba. Lots of photogenic flowers, in season.
As a non-White person, I gotta tell you, I really have no desire whatsoever to visit all 50 US states. All the stares I got from all the White folk at the airport in Tennessee in early 1990s was enough to convince me that it was not worth it.
Never been to Nawlins? Seriously?
There is a long history of North Dakota jokes in South Dakota. I am told this is a great time of year to visit ND because you can watch the antics as ND populace push mobile homes down the streets trying to jump start the heaters.
Go on a pheasant hunting trip.
I've been to or through all 50 states, plus DC and Puerto Rico. Kansas in the only I never spent a night in, just drove across (which is a long day's drive). And north of the border I've visited all the Canadian provinces except Newfoundland (and the Arctic territories)
A long day's drive? It's 440 miles. I think this younger generation is getting soft.
And there are things of interest there that he missed, despite any jokes.
Stopped at Topeka and saw the state capitol. Stopped at Abilene and the Eisenhower house. Stopped and got a pic of the Cathedral of the Plains at sunset. I-70 in KS is such a boring road I would have stopped to see a prairie dog if one had presented itself.
When you're in LA, go spend a day on the beach in Mississippi (Biloxi or Gulfport). Probably one of the more pleasant ways to cross that one off your list.
ND. Yeah, I got attacked by giant fucking mosquitos in ND. No shit. A whole swarm. I barely made it back to my car. I thought Minnesota was bad...
Went through ND and MN from the Canadian Prairies to the East Coast in mid-summer and the mosquitoes were memorable. They were sneaky and elusive in Alberta and Saskatchewan and got bigger, slower, and dumber going through ND and MN. Maybe they're meaner where there aren't so many people around to attack.
Stunning vistas of the Great Plains. At nearly anytime of the year.
Go for the landscape photography if nothing else.
You could visit some of the people inhaling hydrogen peroxide.
LOLWAT? Teddy Roosevelt National Park is both extraordinarily beautiful and empty. Bring your camera. CMON MAN.
The joy of saying, with meaning: My God, what have I done!?!