Biography

When I was a kid, my extended family was spread out all over the country. Add to that, my dad worked for the Forest Service and traveled a lot. So I started accumulating states traveled-to pretty early on. I knew I was in the high 30’s entering adulthood, when a business trip would land me in (for example) a North Carolina, a South Carolina, or a Maine. I had never been to Delaware before the 2008 Brewers playoffs in Philly, so hey, it’s right there. Might as well go grab a late breakfast after the show and check off another state. After a while, there weren’t that many left, especially after vacation trips to Hawaii (2015) and Alaska (2018). When my cousin Greg got married and asked me to officiate, the fact that it was in Utah (2019) was a nice bonus (and introduced us to one of the most stunning landscapes in the world). I was down to five left untraveled to after Utah.

The ongoing pandemic helped spur on a road trip to North Dakota (2021), leaving just four. New Mexico (Dec. 2021), and then Washington (Tuesday, May 24), Idaho (Wednesday, May 25), and now, finally, May 27, 2022, No. 50…Oregon.