{"id":24082,"date":"2020-09-01T17:26:32","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T22:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=24082"},"modified":"2022-07-07T06:17:23","modified_gmt":"2022-07-07T11:17:23","slug":"central-mi-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/central-mi-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring the Mitten, Part 1 (Pivot)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My county counting<\/a> hadn’t gone so well this year thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. I did manage to make that one brief trip to Pennsylvania<\/a> to complete the state. There I picked up a dozen new counties. Not bad. However, that hardly moved the needle overall. I knew one more opportunity loomed as the summer ended. Maybe I could squeeze in a few more counties deep within the Michigan mitten?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those following the 12MC Twitter<\/a> already knew the details. My older son finished high school this year and Michigan State University<\/a> offered him a nice scholarship. So we got ready for the first of what would be many drives up to the campus in East Lansing (map<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seemed like a nice opportunity for a vacation, too. The Pennsylvania trip worked out so well that we decided to try something similar here. We planned to arrive a week early and relax at another lake, this one in Michigan. At the end of the week we’d drop our son off at school and head home. Unfortunately MSU decided to go all-virtual for the semester just days before our trip. Undeterred, we took our vacation anyway!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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New Counties<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Driving<\/a>
The route from Virginia to Michigan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The trip — other than the college thing — actually went well. We got some family time and I collected a bunch of new counties. Notice the tight cluster. I concentrated on a contiguous set of counties in the middle of the state. This also left me in a good position to finish the Lower Peninsula in three more manageable chunks. Maybe that’s optimistic. However, I certainly hope I have multiple opportunities over the next four years. I can’t imagine the kid will have to take classes from his bedroom until he graduates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sixteen new counties joined my list, all in Michigan<\/a>: Arenac; Bay; Clare; Crawford; Genesee; Gladwin; Iosco; Isabella; Kalkaska; Midland; Missaukee; Ogemaw; Osceola; Roscommon; Saginaw; and Wexford. That pushed my lifetime total to 1,535 or 48.8% of counties in the United States. It seems like I’ve been bumping up against that 50% ceiling for the longest time. I can’t wait to get past it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the captures happened on a day-long loop to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Lake Michigan. We took a much shorter drive to a beach on Lake Huron another day and got a new county. Then I went on an hour-long “out and back” to grab two more. Unfortunately I left two potential captures behind because we never ventured down to East Lansing. One of them created something of a doughnut hole. Nonetheless I didn’t worry about it because that blank county (Shiawassee<\/a>) will be an easy catch next time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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New Overnight Counties<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I started counting “overnight” counties a few years ago as a special category. Spending the night in a county seemed more remarkable than simply driving through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We chose to stay overnight both on the way up and on the way back rather than drive 10+ hours in a single shot. That allowed me to finagle stops a bit to spend the night in some new places. I hadn’t used a hotel during the COVID-era so that became a new experience too. Of course I’d never been to our home base in Michigan before either, so I added a total of three overnight counties to my list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Portage County, Ohio<\/h3>\n\n\n\n