Category: U.S. Counties
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Skyline Drive – North District
Skyline Drive hugs the crest of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains for 105 miles (169 kilometres), down the length of Shenandoah National Park. I’ve traveled every section of it, in whole or in part several times, as recently as 2022. So it felt like I rejoined an old friend as we undertook a day-trip from our…
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Finish Ohio & More, Part 3 (Swipe Down)
Michigan was fun but now I needed to drive through Ohio for the last bit of unfinished business. Only three counties out of 88 remained unvisited in Ohio, aligned in a single contiguous row heading due south. It felt like bowling pins lined up for an easy spare. So look out Paulding, Van Wert, and…
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Finish Ohio & More, Part 1 (Swipe Up)
It’s been a work in progress. Slowly, ever slowly, I chipped away at Ohio counties as my older kid attended school in Michigan. I took a different route through Ohio multiple times, collecting counties and adding them to my list. So this was, I think, the sixth trip involving Ohio, all dutifully recorded on Twelve…
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Washington Co., Maryland; Day 2
The pressure was off once I flipped the status of Washington County to “overnight” on my County Counting list. Officially it became Overnight County #205. Now I could concentrate on exploring beyond Hagerstown and further into the countryside. Hancock I’ve always loved driving through Hancock on the western side of Washington County. I’ve mentioned it…
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Washington Co., Maryland; Day 1
I felt trapped at home, first because of a previous snowfall that refused to melt and later by a bout of the flu. Mentally I needed a change of scenery just to get away for awhile and reset my attitude. So this seemed like a perfect time to add another new overnight county to my…
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Interior Alaska, Part 1 (Golden Heart)
Fairbanks calls itself the Golden Heart of Alaska, a nod to its gold-rush past, its geographic placement deep within Interior Alaska, and presumably its demeanor. It’s the second largest metropolitan area in the state but it also feels like a small town. And that’s to be expected because even though it’s Alaska’s second largest metro,…
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Arc of Columbus, Part 2
The quest to add new Ohio spots to my county counting list continued, padding my efforts from earlier in the day. The wide arc I took around the perimeter of Columbus swung from north, clockwise, now approaching due-east. The route now led into Licking County. Getting Licked Licking wasn’t completely unfamiliar because I’d been there…
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Arc of Columbus, Part 1
The summer flew by so quickly. It seems like only yesterday that I drove to Michigan to pick up the kid from college after the end of the spring semester. It was a great trip and I managed to collect eight previously unvisited counties in Ohio along the way. But now I was doing the…
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Taming the Frontier, Part 1
I didn’t have a proper vacation in awhile. Then, unexpectedly, I had abundant time on my hands. I also needed to bring a kid home from Michigan State University who just finished the first year of a graduate program. So I planned a delightfully inefficient route through rural eastern Ohio to build my County Counting…
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Culpeper Co., Virginia
I enjoy county counting but it becomes increasingly difficult to reach new counties as my count increases. That’s why I began a sub-variant involving overnight counties. You see it counts “more” by my arbitrary rules if I spend an entire night there instead of simply passing through. That’s because it involves a tangible financial commitment,…