I think it’s safe to say that North Dakota has the reputation of being the most boring and drab state in the union, so much so that the state’s tourism board has wittily embraced it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.  I pulled off of the road at the border between North and South Dakota. Surrounded on both sides by sweeping green pastures, my only company was the occasional speeding motorist and a scrum of black cows on the horizon.  I may have allegedly left another pair of

Somewhere along the line I lumped North and South Dakota together in my mind. I’d been told repeatedly that North Dakota was flat and boring - miles and miles of nothing. I guess I just mentally conflated the two. South Dakota has the highest ratio of cows to people of any state (3.91), so it didn't seem like a huge leap. But everyone I spoke to within three states of the Dakotas was quick to correct me. South Dakota they said is pretty remarkable, and not what I pictured. So

I set out from Laramie in the late morning, groggy and undercaffeinated, and headed east. I’d had a wicked case of insomnia my last night in Wyoming. Sleep and I have always had a complicated relationship. I find it impossible to get into any routine or rhythm. If I manage to get a solid eight hours two nights in a row, the third night is inevitably a disaster. Either I can’t get to sleep or my eyes will pop open at 3:00am.  As a kid I had a perpetual case of FOMO at bedtime

It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I can be a bit of a contrarian. Several people have raved to me about the natural beauty of Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park , but I went into the state with low expectations. It’s just mountains, desert, and a dumb geyser, what’s the big deal? If so few people lived in the state (it has the fewest people per square mile in the contiguous 48), I was sure it couldn’t be as special as all that. I was very, very wrong.

Montana was always going to be an emotionally complicated state for me to visit because I first dreamt up the idea of this 50 states trip while vacationing there with my former partner. But first I had to solve the challenge of how to get my car back from Alaska. I had three possible options: 1) drive back through The Yukon and British Columbia, 2) take the ferry down with it, or 3) have it shipped. Remarkably all three options cost around the same. I’d had the luxury of driv

It feels weird to call Alaska a state. It is simultaneously distinctly American and something else entirely. It feels removed from the...