Maps

OK. So it's been a looonnnggg while since I posted anything here. But never fear, I have a list of goodies I've been saving up to post and yak about: travels and photos and work and random thoughts galore.

But first, maps! I've always loved staring at maps - I have a distinct memory from when I was very small of looking at a globe and wondering which country was the United States (apparently I couldn't read yet). I remember deciding that Australia was in fact the U.S., mainly because I figured we were a large country and were too important to be connected to other, lesser nations. It seems I was a raging nationalist as a 3-year old.

Anyway I stole this idea from Leo's blog (it's apparently the hip thing to put on your blog these days): here are some maps of the places I've travelled.



First, the world map -- pretty pathetic really. I've really wanted to travel outside the U.S. more than I have. Laura Jean and I have plans to live overseas at some point in the near future, so maybe all that empty space will start to fill in a bit.



This is a bit more respectable. As a kid, my family's vacation of choice often involved super-long road trips to places like Yellowstone and Vancouver, thus accounting for most of the western states. And in this past year I picked up three new states: Nebraska, Missouri and Delaware. It looks like a swing through the South is in order at some point -- and since we'll likely be living in Virginia come September, that just might happen. But who knows if I'll ever make it to Rhode Island.

Anyway, the websites to create these maps are the following for the visited country map and the visited states map.

[ Update Feb 2007: Since I posted this I've racked up one new country (Poland) and one new state (North Carolina), bringing my totals to 12 countries (5%) and 35 states (68%). Wahoo! ]