Tuesday, January 15, 2013

A Trace of Childhood

I'm sharing something a bit different on this week's blog.

If you knew me as a kid, you may know we did a lot of family trips each year. Most of those trips were done by car and as a family, my parents, sister and I saw a lot of the Eastern U.S.A. on these vacations (Every state east of the Mississippi except Maine, oddly enough). Back in the day, there were card games, board games and other things that kept us occupied on such long drives. For example, do you recall the "coloring books" with the magic pens that somehow knew which color to create depending on where on the page it would touch? Between the hours of car games and the mega-hits of the 80's that played on the radio (can you say "We Are the World"?) as we traveled across the country, those trips were always fun. Well, except perhaps the time we drove back from Washington, D.C. when the timing belt on our car went kaput in Clyde, Ohio!

At any rate, one of my favorite memories in these car rides was counting license plates on the cars that went by. There used to be little boards that were red with little sliding panels that you could use to mark off the states or scenes you passed by (silos, cows, barns, water towers, horses, etc.). To this day, I still count state plates. When I lived in Chicago and walked to work, I averaged 5 state plates per morning on my walk. I held to the superstition that if I didn't see 5 plates it was going to be tough day. More than 5, and things were going to be great! It is nonsense, but it made the day interesting.

Enter the era of phone apps and now I can use my phone to track which states I see. From Thanksgiving, November of 2011 through the end of 2012, I counted 45 plates. The ones I had not found included Vermont, Nevada, D.C. (it counts), Montana, Alaska and Hawaii. Not bad for someone who basically stayed in Illinois the entire year!

I have since restarted the clock and in the last 5 days alone, these are the plates I have seen:









Did you notice that all three of these are plates are ones that I never once saw last year?

I see a lot of cars from Texas and Iowa for some reason. There are the typical nearby states such as Indiana, Michigan and Missouri. On my drives back and forth to Chicago I see a lot of trucks from Maine, Oklahoma and Minnesota. Those are all fairly typical. I also managed to see quite a few plates from Canada, such as Quebec and Ontario, even one from Saskatchewan. Too bad those don't show up on plate apps.

With the way this year is going, perhaps I may even catch Hawaii and Alaska!

I'll keep you posted!
KB





1 comment:

  1. Great blog, brings back great memories. I still look for plates wherever I am. Its fun to see where people are traveling from.

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