2021: A Look Back

2020 was not a good year. We all know that. When it finally ended, I was hopeful that 2021 would be better.

Turns out that such optimism was poorly placed. At least it felt that way when I sat down to write this post because the final three months of the year were so terrible.

However, when I actually looked back at the entire year, the first nine months of the year were pretty good, which is saying something since we're still dealing with a global pandemic.

Not only is this an excellent example of the primacy/recency effect, it also perfectly reflects how I have lost all sense of time since March 2020. It doesn't seem possible that some of these things happened in 2021 because the end of the year went by so incredibly slowly for me.

The best adventure of the year was deciding to go to all 50 states in 2021, a checklist we completed in September! So many memorable moments as we worked our way around the country...especially spring break in Hawaii, driving to the Arctic Circle in Alaska, and staying at Crater Lake Lodge. We spent hours, days, and weeks in the car together and our summer road trip was an incredible quest that we hope to do again someday! We went to WDW for C's birthday, took Ginny for countless rides, walks, and even her first hotel stays, and I got to spend a week at WDW with my mom, just the two of us. We also went to four new baseball stadiums (Cincinnati Reds, Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves, and Minnesota Twins) and one new hockey arena (Seattle Kraken), and were so fortunate to spend a week in Portugal. We also finally saw C's parents after two years, even though the reason for the trip to Canada was to attend my grandma's burial service.

There is of course, one event from the year that overshadowed everything else. Losing our Ginny. It was not only the most devastating thing to happen this year, it was one of the worst experiences of my life. It's been 85 days and it still sometimes feels like it just happened. However, whenever we are overcome with grief, we remind each other of all of the entertaining things she did and we end up smiling and laughing at our memories of her. She was so special because she was with us when we lost our other seven girls, and because she was with us - and particular C - every moment during this crazy pandemic. She was such a gift and we miss her every day, but we are carrying those happy memories of her and each of her sisters with us into 2022 and beyond.

Happy Tails to you!

50 States in 2021: Check!

Last year when we were in the thick of the quarantine, we realized that our plans for trips to Central America for spring break and to Europe this summer were probably not going to happen, so we shifted gears and decided to stay in the U.S. instead.

We planned a trip to Hawaii for spring break and as for summer, Alaska was at the top of our list. In very typical "us" fashion, it didn't take long before we realized that if we had plans for Hawaii and Alaska in 2021, the other 48 states would be a breeze, so we decided to go to all 50 states in the same year.

We'd been to all 50 states before - we finished that travel checklist in 2004 - but it took us many years to do so. The challenge now was to get to all 50 states in 2021 and I'm happy to say we did it!

As I stated in our "rules" back in my post from January 1, we both had to be in the state and we had to get a picture of a welcome sign. That was it - not only would it be very difficult logistically to spend a night in each different state in the course of one year, but to be honest, we didn't have much interest in every state (and conversely, we wanted to spend multiple nights in some states) because we'd been to them before.

This challenge took us 248 days to complete and with the exception of flying to Hawaii and Alaska, we drove. To be clear, C drove every single one of those miles! I didn't keep track of mileage except for our big trip in the summer, but a good estimate of the total number of driving miles is somewhere around 14,750 for our travel within the lower 48 and if I add in the driving miles in Alaska, the total driving miles is in the neighborhood of 16,275 (I'm not counting Hawaii because we only rented a car for two days to drive around Oahu before going to Aulani, so the mileage from Hawaii is pretty negligible).

Here are all 50 welcome signs, in the order we visited:

SC - January 1

GA - January 1

FL - January 1

NC - January 2

VA - January 2

MD - January 9

WV - January 9

PA - January 9

HI - March 27

DE - April 18

TN - May 29

KY - May 30

NJ - June 26

OH - July 2

IN - July 3

MI - July 3

IL - July 3

WI - July 4

MN - July 4

ND - July 4

SD - July 5

IA - July 5

NE - July 5

MO - July 5

KS - July 6

CO - July 6

WY - July 7

UT - July 7

ID - July 8

MT - July 9

WA - July 11

AK - July 12

OR - July 19

CA - July 23

NV - July 26

AZ - July 26

NM - July 27

TX - July 27

OK - July 27

AR - July 29

LA - July 29

MS - July 29

AL - July 29

NY - September 3

CT - September 4

RI - September 4

MA - September 5

NH - September 5

ME - September 5

VT - September 5

When thinking about the different state signs, it's funny that all three "O" states come to mind! Oklahoma is my favorite sign because of its design, while Oregon and Ohio are my least favorite signs because both of them were so difficult to capture and frankly, a little dangerous, given their locations.

This was a super fun series of adventures and I would do it again in a heartbeat. 42 hotel nights, countless hours in the car with C (and sometimes Ginny!), and the chance to see so many beautiful places across the country!

Happy Tails to you!