Category: United States

For a long time, when I would try to name all 50 states, I would get to 49 and the one that I inevitably would have forgotten was Delaware. And then one of my best friends moved there! So not only did I have to remember that Delaware existed, but we would often meet halfway in Wilmington. It’s only about an hour from DC by Amtrak.

One of the quirky things about Delaware is that it is where almost every single US company is incorporated. Under their tax law, a company incorporated in Delaware can avoid paying state taxes. Not only are most companies incorporated there, but most companies also use the same registered address: 1209 North Orange Street. I know this because the company I work for uses that same registered address. I’ve filled it out on plenty of forms! 1209 North Orange Street is officially home to over 285,000 businesses. I cannot even fathom how much corporate mail they must get.

And yes, I am the kind of nerd who had to go see the address in person!

Wilmington has a charming little downtown. They are clearly trying to develop those public spaces, including both the Riverfront and Brandywine Park. As my friend is a mom, we spent a lot of our visits either at the Children’s Museum or at the Brandywine Zoo, both of which were pretty solid day trips for a toddler.

Brandywine Park was quite nice, and I do think the zoo punches above its weight considering how small Wilmington is and how many significantly larger cities there are nearby.

I don’t have as many photos from the Children’s Museum or the Riverfront, since I’m not posting any that include Emmy’s child, but I do leave you with one of the fun facts I learned from the Children’s Museum: Delaware’s state fish is the weakfish, which is a very funny name for a fish.

I wouldn’t have gone to Wilmington so many times if it wasn’t for Emmy, but it was always a nice day trip! And if you, like me, are interested in going to every state, there’s definitely enough there to spend a nice day or weekend there during a visit to the East Coast.

For Memorial Day weekend, Sam and I headed west! Now that I live on the East Coast, it’s so wild to me how long it takes to get to the Pacific. It’s a 5 or 6 hour flight just to get across the country. We took a redeye flight to San Francisco and then a short hop up to Medford, where we met up with some friends. Our friend Chelsea has been working her way through the US National Parks, and it’s been fun to tag along when we can.

For this trip, we based ourselves near Klamath Falls. I wasn’t sure what to expect – the thing about small towns in America is that there is a huge variation on how well they’re doing, economically, and so sometimes you have the charming, Stars Hollow-style Main Street, the platonic ideal of a small town, and other times you have a version of that that’s been abandoned and left to rot for 40 years. In any case, Klamath Falls seems to be thriving because of its proximity to Crater Lake, and it seems to function as a bit of a hub for the hikers and tourists in the area. It’s very charming! There were a lot of nice local restaurants and bars, and we tried several while we were there. We ended up at the farmer’s market one of the mornings when we went into town for coffee as well.

Our top priority was to visit Crater Lake, so that was the first thing on our itinerary! As it turns out, late May is still winter season in Crater Lake, so we were a bit more limited in what we were able to do and see while we were there. I had been once before, a long time ago, and my parents and I were able to walk all the way down to the edge of the lake because we visited in late summer. On this trip, there was still a lot of snow, and so most of the roads around the crater were closed.

I’m glad to have gone in both seasons, because there are pros and cons to both. There’s obviously much more to do in the summer. I wish we had spikes or snowshoes for this one, because I would have happily walked along the trails if I wasn’t afraid of slipping all over the snowpack. But having the snow surrounding the lake was absolutely spectacular!

After we walked around for a bit, got our stamps, and had lunch, we had basically done everything that was possible to do at Crater Lake, so we headed back to Klamath Falls. We went to the Klamath County Museum, which was cute. It was in what appeared to be an old high school gymnasium, and you could still see the lines of the basketball court on the floor. It was fairly thorough considering how rural Klamath is, with a little bit of all of their local history and a section on the natural history of the area as well.

The next day, we crossed the border into California! It was less than an hour to Lava Beds National Monument. After the snow of Crater Lake, it was strange to be in that level of heat. Lava Beds has a lot of lava tubes and caves, including ice caves because of the way that they’re structured. Walking from the surface down into where the ice never melts was a wild experience.

We also went kayaking in Klamath Lake! I love kayaking, so it was nice to get on the water. It was a beautiful place to do it. There were mountain views all around.

Our final activity of the weekend was going for a wine tasting! Oregon has some fantastic wineries, mostly in Willamette Valley south of Portland, and we were excited to try some local wine. We found one close to Klamath that had great reviews and went for a tasting. I also did a tasting of olive oil and balsamic, which was a fun experience.

All in all, an excellent weekend! It’s harder to go all the way to the west coast for a weekend trip now, but this definitely made the long flight worth it. Oregon has so much natural beauty, and it was great to explore it with some of our friends!

This year, my book club decided to do a group trip! We decided on Mackinac Island, which I was thrilled about. I’ve always wanted to visit Mackinac Island, and it was the perfect destination to slow down and spend some time with my friends.

If you don’t know anything about Mackinac Island, what makes it so unique is that it has banned basically all cars except emergency vehicles on the island, so all of the transport is done by bike or horse-drawn carriage. It feels like stepping back in time, into a quaint, Main Street-style America, with general stores and fudge shops.

Getting there was a bit of an ordeal – Sam and I flew from BWI to Chicago, and then boarded our flight to Pellston. That flight got diverted to Traverse City, which was a new one for my own personal flight fuck-up bingo board, and then we sat on the tarmac for a while. They couldn’t let us get off the plane because we were a United plane at a Delta gate, and they told us that if they let us get off, they weren’t sure they could get us back on the plane without issue. I was just nervous because if we missed the last ferry, that was going to be a problem. But we did finally get back in the air, made the short trip up to Pellston, and then took a bus to the ferry terminal and a ferry to the island. It was a long day.

But it was all worth it to make it to the island! After checking it at our hotel, we headed to the iconic Pink Pony for our first dinner. This is one of the ones that Steph had discovered in her research and we were all excited to try. The food was good and the atmosphere was even better, with fun pink decorations throughout the restaurant.

The next morning, we rented bikes so we could cycle around Mackinac! It’s only about 8 miles, and it was the perfect way to see the whole island in a fairly short period of time. We made lots of stops so that we could take pictures. The only negative is that this time of year has a lot of black flies in Michigan, and it seemed as though every time we stopped, we would get swarmed. At times, I was biking while holding my hand over my face just to try to keep them away from my nose and mouth. Thankfully, they didn’t bite.

After a post-biking lunch, we headed up to Mackinac Fort! I loved the views from the hill. We watched a couple demonstrations on old-timey weapons and explored the museum exhibits about Mackinac’s history.

Of the various demonstrations we saw, my favorite was the blacksmith! He talked to us about the techniques used as well as what it’s like being a blacksmith in the modern era. He mentioned that doing something like this, where he gets to talk about the history and older techniques, is the only way he gets to make certain types of objects – something like a handmade hammer, for example, is prohibitively expensive compared to one made at a factory, and there’s no specific reason why handmade would be better. So this experience has been great for him to actually get to make some of the things he’s always wanted to try.

One of the mornings, we went up to Arch Rock. That area also had a visitor center, with more of a focus of the geography of Mackinac and some old photos of the early inhabitants of Mackinac at the rock.

Mackinac was charming, and there is plenty to keep you occupied as a tourist. Lots of museums with exhibits on their history, natural sites to visit, and cute boutique shops. That said, for me, my favorite parts of the experience were the aspects that showed more of what it would be like to live there. One of the days, we walked inland, outside of where the tourists stayed and into the part of town where primarily locals and summer workers lived. It was so interesting to get a small look at what it takes to run a place that is seemingly set in the past. The play between traditional and modernity – the horse-drawn cart pulling Amazon packages, the police bike parking, the Starbucks sandwiched between fudge shops that gets its ingredients by ferry and horses and bikes. Part of me wants to get a job there for a summer or something, just to experience the daily rhythms of life there for a few months.

It was an amazing trip. Mackinac is truly special and unique, and I was so happy to spend some time there with people that I’ve been friends with for almost a decade. I would definitely recommend it if you’re looking for a summer lake destination!

I’m very close to visiting all 50 states in the US! After my visit to Alabama in January, I was left with only three more, which is a goal I’d like to finish by the end of 2025. Right now, as the weather gets warmer, I’m putting it on pause, since I’m not interested in visiting the South in the middle of the summer, but I have tentative plans for state #50 so I’ll have to plan the other two as we get into fall.

For Alabama, I ended up choosing Birmingham for my visit. Montgomery was a close second – both cities have fascinating history in the Civil Rights era, but it seemed as though Birmingham would have more to see from a visitor’s perspective and better options for restaurants and bars. I’m sure I’ll make it to Montgomery at some point, but I had a nice weekend in Birmingham!

Birmingham’s story is one of a city rising out of the ashes. The path to civil rights in Alabama was not an easy one, and Birmingham once had the nickname of “Bombingham” for the 50 dynamite bombings that took place over about 20 years, from 1947 to 1965. The most famous is the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, which has been rebuilt and stands across from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

The Civil Rights Institute is absolutely what drew me to Birmingham, and it didn’t disappoint. It did a great job covering the history of Birmingham and the broader Civil Rights movement, from sit-ins to the desegregation of buses to the Freedom Riders movement. The section on the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in particular was so well done, both on the events that happened leading up to it and the investigation that was done after the fact.

The park outside also had a set of sculptures and memorials related to the Civil Rights movement. I found the one where it feels as though you’re walking in between the snarling and barking dogs to be particularly interesting.

Downtown Birmingham maintains a lot of its historical charm, but then some parts of the city felt absolutely abandoned. It probably didn’t help that I was there in January. Still, the areas that were thriving seemed great, and I hope that same energy can sweep over the rest of the city.

After I’d visited all the other things I wanted to visit, like the historical sites and museums, I ended up stumbling upon a very cute indie movie theater! It’s called Sidewalk Film Center + Cinema, and I’m a little obsessed with it. Such cool vibes. If it was in the city where I lived, I would go there all the time. I went to see Nosferatu, which was a good one to see on the big screen. The photos below are from the bathroom, which stayed on theme.

Overall, Birmingham was a good weekend! Pleasant and interesting, with good food options and with plenty of options to fill a couple days. I’ll be heading back to the South a few times this year to finish my last few states, so it’s been nice to get a chance to learn about the Civil Rights history from the locations where it all happened.

Of the states I had remaining, Tennessee was one of the ones that surprised people the most. It’s understandable, since Nashville has developed quite the reputation as a party city. It seems as though every other bachelorette party is taking place in Nashville at any given time. I was still taken aback when I left my hotel mid morning on a Friday and found people wandering through the streets, already drunk. I asked my waitress about it at lunch and she told me this was normal.

It’s funny, though, because it really doesn’t take much to get away from the party scene. The first “touristy” thing I did was head to the Capitol, since that was only open on weekdays. It only took two or three blocks away from Broadway for the bass of the music to fade away.

I don’t necessarily seek out US state capitals, because often our state capitals are out of the way, but I do think it’s fun to go to those when I can. In a delightfully moment of Southern hospitality, the man who was doing security at the Capitol asked me where I was visiting from and then proceeded to tell me all about the time that he took his son up to Washington DC so they could go to the Smithsonian together.

The Tennessee Capitol building was really pretty. It was also interesting that they didn’t go the route that a lot of them seem to, where they have the dome and look similar to the US Capitol building. The Utah one looks so similar to the US Capitol that they actually used it as a stand-in in Legally Blonde 2 when Elle goes to Congress. Tennessee has gone with a different structure, which looks more like a courthouse from the outside.

I also headed to the Country Music Hall of Fame! Nashville has a huge amount of country music history, and this museum was a great crash course. There are a lot of options of places to go within Nashville for more music history, if you’re a huge fan of country, but I am not so I figured this was my best place to start.

It was a cool museum. Because so many famous artists came through Nashville, or recorded there, there was enough that even I could appreciate, and if you are a fan of country music, you would probably have a much bigger appreciation than I did!

One of the number one recommendations for a visit to Nashville is to go to a show at the Opry. It came up on basically every recommendation that I saw. The fun thing about the weekend I went is that there was actually a Christmas special being filmed, so I bought a ticket to go see Little Big Town’s Christmas special. I figured even if I had no idea who Little Big Town was, I would at least know some of the songs!

It turned out to be such a good idea. It was so fun to go to a live taping – I’d never been to one before, and it was interesting to see how it all gets made. Once or twice, they had to fully repeat a song. Sometimes they would flub a word on the intro and re-start it, or pause for a few minutes to fully reset the stage. I love seeing what goes into all of it, and then knowing at the end that it will all be re-edited into a seamless presentation. The artists I didn’t know ahead of time all did a great job, and they also had some guests that I did actually recognize, like Sheryl Crow and Josh Groban!

Nashville was a great weekend trip. The party scene was a bit much for me, especially on a solo trip, but even when I didn’t spend tons of time at the bars on Broadway, there was still plenty to do and a lot of nice areas to wander around. The accommodation options were pretty expensive but clearly it’s because of the high demand!

Anyway, that’s a wrap on Nashville. I’m down to my last four states! Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana are the ones I have left, and I’m excited to get to explore those too.

It’s the anniversary of my move to Washington DC! One year ago today, Sam and I boarded a plane, each of us having checked luggage to bring just enough to be able to camp out in an apartment while we waited for our worldly possessions to be shipped across the country. We had about 15 apartment tours lined up over the next few days so that we could try to get a lease signed before I left for a week in Mexico and Sam left to visit his family for Thanksgiving. It was a real whirlwind!

Now, a year out, I am so glad to have made the leap. There were a lot of things to love about Utah. I miss a lot of our friends there, as well as the incredible feeling of living in a house that we owned – it was a bit of an adjustment back to having a landlord, although it’s nice not to have to call our own plumber when things went wrong. And the hiking and natural beauty in Utah is unparalleled. But at the same time, I had been living there for about seven years, and I was looking for a change. And I’ve loved living in DC so far!

The best change has absolutely been how walkable the city is. We sold our car in Salt Lake before we moved, and I’ve been loving the ability to go pretty much anywhere on Metro or via bus. Also, I love walking through the city. I love trying to identify the flags at the embassies and coming across new monuments. Salt Lake’s urban design is a lot more car-centric.

Related to that, we are so connected to everything. This is the first time I’ve lived east of Chicago in the United States, and it blows my mind how interconnected and close everything is on the East Coast. We’re only a few hours from Philadelphia or New York, and there are Amtrak connections all up and down the Eastern seaboard. We have three airports, two of which are international, so the amount of direct flights that are available is incredible (even if more of them are on American Airlines).

It’s still strange that the national news is essentially our local news now – a visiting dignitary or a NATO conference can disrupt traffic or close metro stations. I somehow expected the politics to impact me more. I haven’t made any friends who work in politics, which is fine by me, but it means that I have felt strangely disconnected from all of it so far. It’s always a belated realization that the street I need to go down is currently hosting the IMF or something. We’ll see if that changes.

What I love about it being the seat of government, of course, is our proximity to the embassies. I have gone on a lot of trips lately that have required visas. When I went to Djibouti in January, the evisa wasn’t working for me and it was a game changer to be able to show up live and get help applying for a tourist visa in person. I’ve had something of a marathon of visa applications for the trip I’m currently on. It gave me options – for one of them, going to the consulate was just up the road and meant I could get the visa in advance instead of doing it on arrival, so I could carry less cash and have one less that I had to worry about at a border.

The Smithsonian museums are incredible as well. They are world class cultural institutions, and they’re free. It means there are more options of what to go do on the weekends and what to show visitors. I’ve made it a goal to go to all of the Smithsonian museums here, which is definitely a marathon and not a sprint, because it is possible to get museum’d out.

This is the first time I’ve moved to a city where I’ve actually known people. The other times I’ve moved as an adult – to Chicago for school, to SLC for my first job, and to a lesser degree, to Copenhagen and Strasbourg for temporary educational opportunities – I’ve known no one. Moving with Sam obviously made a huge difference, and it was nice to actually have a bit of a network out here already.

The types of people who are interested in moving to DC are more of my type of people as well. While I made amazing friends in Utah, the type of person who would move to Utah as an adult was often so outdoorsy that we had little in common as far as hobbies go. Sam and I once went to a party where every single other person we met did backcountry skiing. The DC vibe is more internationally minded, and more interested in indie movies or trying a new restaurant than hiking a 14er.

DC isn’t perfect. No place is, because life is messy and unpredictable and there will always be stressors. But I’ve had a pretty great first year here. It’s impossible to know what the future holds, but at least for now, my future is here in DC!

It’s wild that after all the time I spent living and traveling through the Midwest, I never made it to Michigan. On my way back from Washington Island, I decided it was time to change that! I took a flight path that took me through Detroit and had one full day there.

I didn’t have a particularly ambitious itinerary for my visit. I wanted to go to the Motown Museum, but it was closed the day I was there. Instead, I explored the city center. Detroit is such an interesting city – for probably 50 or 60 years, it was thriving due to the automotive industry, but when the industry left, it felt into decline and for a while, Detroit considered the most dangerous city in America. Lately, there’s been somewhat of a resurgence. Definitely not back to where they were prior to going through urban blight, but there has been a concerted effort to improve the city and bring back more cultural institutions.

Part of how this manifests is through street art and outdoor spaces. There are a lot of monuments and murals throughout downtown, and there seem to be a lot of new parks or spaces for bars and restaurants to serve outside. It seemed to me as if some of that was working – while there were areas where I didn’t see anyone else out walking, there were a few streets that had a lot of residents out and about.

Canada is just on the other side of the river, although I didn’t cross over. I’m not sure if there’s anything particularly interesting to see on the Canadian side. I wanted to walk along the Riverwalk, which is meant to be pleasant, but it was closed off for some sort of event.

The main goal, besides exploring the city a bit, was to get Detroit style pizza! I ended up meeting a friend for dinner and trying it. I love that it was invented as a way to reuse the automotive plant parts, and I thought the end result was absolutely delicious.

I came away wishing I’d had a little more time in Detroit! I had a nice time exploring, but I didn’t get to go to any of the museums or anything, and it felt like the city had more to offer. I love seeing cities that are working to change negative perceptions – from what I could tell, Detroit is doing an amazing job to work on rebuilding itself after the deindustrialization that happened in the 70s and 80s. I would definitely be interested in going back.

This is the year that I turn 30. To celebrate, my high school friends and I did a mini-reunion where we all went up to Washington Island together! One of my friends arranged for us to borrow her aunt’s cabin for a long weekend. Washington Island is a tiny island off the tip of Door County, which is that long skinny tip of Wisconsin that juts into Lake Michigan. We flew into Milwaukee and rented a car, and after about a four hour drive, we had to take a ferry to get to the island. Also, a note about the Milwaukee airport: they have a section officially labeled the “recombobulation area” after security, which I found charming and delightful.

Door County is adorable! It feels like the Midwest’s answer to Cape Cod, with boutique shops and local produce off the side of the road. We had stocked up on groceries and each of us brought a craft to teach the rest of the group, so we were ready to have a relaxed weekend of spending time together and exploring a bit of the island.

The main sites of Washington Island, in no particular order:

The local Norwegian-style stavkirke. Fun fact, there are only 9 of these in the United States – most are in northern US in areas that had a large number of Scandinavian immigrants, but one of them is in Epcot in the Norwegian pavilion. So I’ve now seen two of the nine in the US, I suppose.

The lavender farm. For an extra fee, you can pick a bouquet of lavender, which we did, and then they have a café with a bunch of foods that incorporate lavender. The lemonade was excellent!

Schoolhouse Beach. No sand, just rocks! We swam in the lake, which was chilly but doable.

Nelson’s Hall Bitters Pub. I’m going to link to the Atlas Obscura entry here, because their description is pretty thorough, but basically it is the oldest continuously-operating tavern in Wisconsin. Founded in 1899, it managed to survive Prohibition by “prescribing” bitters, which was challenged in court and won. Nowadays, if you do a shot of bitters, you get a card that you sign and stamp with your thumb declaring you a true islander! I wouldn’t do the shot of bitters again but it was a fun night out.

Washington Island was amazing. I cannot recommend it highly enough. We had such a good time exploring the island, and when we weren’t out picking lavender, we were learning how to knit and embroider and basket weave together. I also saw my very first fireflies, which was magical! I would definitely recommend it if you’re looking for a cool destination in the US.

Moving from Salt Lake City to DC, I did wonder if I would be able to find good hiking and outdoorsy activities out east. While I stand by the statement that Salt Lake is the best place in the country if you are outdoorsy but also want to live in close proximity to a city, it was fun to explore our closest national park: Shenandoah!

Our friend Chelsea came into town and the three of us headed there for a weekend in June. This isn’t necessarily the time of year I would recommend, as it was brutally hot in the afternoons. We did a couple hikes but we made sure to get up bright and early so that we could beat the heat as much as possible. While I would have preferred a slightly later wake up time, it was beautiful to see the sun rise over the mountains.

The hikes were nice – mostly wooded trails, with a few rocky sections, and a nice payoff of views out over the landscape. We also saw quite a few deer and some raccoons (which, incidentally, is the first time I’ve seen them in the wild. I often heard them rattling around in the trash cans of my college campus but they were concealed).

We spent one of our afternoons avoiding the heat in Luray Caverns, which is a massive cave system in that area of Virginia. The rock formations were incredible! There was one section, called Dream Lake, with a perfect mirrored illusion reflecting the stalactites in the water, and it felt like something straight out of a fairy tale. They also had a pipe organ set up in the cavern near the end that was attached to the stalactites, and we got to watch them play music on it, which was a pretty cool way to end the visit.

The one thing I would say about Luray Caverns is that I struggled with the fact that it was privately owned and operated, instead of being managed by the National Park Service, like the caves I’ve been in up to this point in the US. It felt wildly commercialized, and I’m much more interested in spreading a message of conservation and education – some of the behavior that was allowed in the caves, like throwing coins in the water, was absolutely shocking to me. I would still recommend visiting, because the cave system was amazing, but it is something to be mindful of.

All in all, it was a great weekend trip from DC! Once we rented a car, it was easy to get to, with good hiking and activities, as well as nice local restaurants in the small towns surrounding the park. I would definitely go back. Hopefully on my next visit, the weather is a little cooler!