Hello! Our story begins in the summer of 1993, when a very wise mutual friend played matchmaker with my wife and I. Among many other compatibilities, she recognized a common interest in seeing new places and learning about the world through those experiences. The mutual friend was my neighbor at the time; she and her fiancé invited me over to share photos from a recent trip to Yosemite with them. The young woman who would later become my wife happened to be visiting.
As we got to know each other, we hiked locally at the start, gradually expanding our range over time. Eventually, planning the next adventure began on our way home from the current one (or sometimes planning multiple ones at the same time).
We skip ahead a couple of years to what would become the central theme of our travel journey, taking shape on a drive from our homes in Iowa to Yosemite National Park for our ‘first big road trip’ together. Somewhere in the middle of Nevada during the 27 hours of driving time, one of us came up with an idea: “What about vacationing in all 50 States by the time we’re 50!”. So, our named quest “50 by 50” began…
On these pages, we’ll share more than just the “50 by 50” checkmarks. We’ll share travel experiences as a couple, trips with our parents, trips with our children (now in college), and a few other side journeys along the way.
As mentioned on our home page, the main reason for starting this site is to consolidate the memories into a central location for ourselves or our children. These trips started in the days of mailing your film roll into the processor and hoping that something good came back as a photo. It will be nice to be able to have the trips at our fingertips instead of having to find the right album or search through numerous digital file folders.
Maybe there will be some new travel inspiration for some, maybe some interesting stories here and there, or simply a virtual tour through some interesting photography sets.
I don’t know if there is a name for this type of ‘historical blog’ looking back at trips taken over many years. We’ll just see where this new virtual journey takes us,
Loren & Becky