Olympia, Washington - #37

Olympia state capital. Beautiful place. Easy to get this one.

Salem, Oregon - #36

Salem at night. It took me awhile to get this one. I think I turned off the Interstate a bit too soon.

Carson City, Nevada - #35

Carson City was easy to find. Very small building.

Sacramento, California - #34

Sacramento at night. Easy to find.

Phoenix, Arizona - #33

Rob and Amanda let me stay at their apartment in Phoenix. Thanks guys. It was a very hot day that day...even in the morning. Thankful for air conditioning.

Santa Fe, New Mexico - #32

I had a harder time finding the capital building (I THINK this is the capital building). It didn't have a dome like most of the other capitals and was not as big as the others are. Hopefully I got this right. :) Or I have to go back to Santa Fe.

Denver, Colorado - #31

Denver at night. I lived near Denver for 5 months but never officially did the capital. Great to be back in Colorado!

Cheyenne, Wyoming - #30

I made it to Cheyenne just as the sun was setting. I had to speed a bit. :)

Salt Lake City, Utah - #29

Salt Lake City is tucked away between mountains and Salt Lake. Beautiful place. I also visited the Morman Temple and the vast salt flats. Saw a BEAUTIFUL sunset over Salt Lake.

Boise, Idaho - #28

It was a beautiful morning. Cool, wet grass. They were doing construction around the building. Drove to nearby Twin Falls, Idaho and viewed BASE jumpers and some beautiful waterfalls.

Statistics

-Most of the state capitals were on Interstate routes (exception Dover and whenever it was quicker to cut across on a state highway) and were located centrally in the state. Most of the capital buildings were located in the center of the city and were easy to find.
-Gas fill ups were anywhere from 30 to 45 dollars (US dollars).
-Gased up 24 times (approximately 800 dollars).
-Averaged driving between 10 and 12 hours a day.
-Bret joined with me at 3000 miles on odometer (in New York city), but I still did most of the driving since it was under my insurance. (btw...I bought a Gold Select Visa through TD Bank. If you purchase the car rental through this visa card it will cover the insurance. It is a no-annual fee card.)
-Never did more than 3 capitals in one day althought it was possible in the eastern states.
-7 motels. (hint: gas stations have hotel coupon books that are very helpful to find cheap prices. GREAT!). Stayed with friends the other 6 times. Oh...slept on the plane on my first day....and in the car on my last day.
-7,524.9 miles total.
-No speeding tickets.

Little Rock, Arkansas - #27

Yippee! Those aren't stars...it was raining. The weather was spectacular for most of the driving. Near the end of the trip there was some rain...but I enjoyed the cooler weather. It is 9pm or something....and my flight leaves tomorrow morning at 10:30am from St. Louis. SO...that means we drive through the night. CRAZY! Dallas, Texas to St. Louis, Missouri.

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma - #26

I liked this state capital building. It had a bunch of Oklahoma flags (all blue) around it and it had just rained so everything was fresh and clean. One more to go...

Austin, Texas - #25

This is the half way point on the check list. State Capital number 25 (not including D.C). Bret and I are a bit tired now...but we drove half way across Texas. I'm now at the most south/west point on the leg of the 50 capitals. Stopped in Dallas for the night. Bret was getting mad at me cause I was tired and started driving really, really slow. It was a bit scary for him. I was in my "happy" place so I was fine. :) The next day we slept in and then went for coffee with Brian and Marie Norman. It was great to see them.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana - #24

Baton Rouge, has the tallest state capital building in the US. There are 34 floors. I chose to use this picture not because I'm overshadowing the building, but because of my beautiful new shag look....plus the sun-burned forehead.

Jackson, Mississippi - #23

We stayed over in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. It POURED that evening. Beautiful storm. We decided to stay because we wanted to see Biloxi and Gulfport. Both Bret and I had done some Katrina relief and it was good to go back and see where things were at since two years ago. I was surprised to find very little progress, lots of things for sale and some places in the same state as they were in when Katrina hit. Perhaps lack of supplies and workers causes prices to sky-rocket, or maybe people just don't want to rebuild. It will take years and years to get that area back and running. Anyways, we left and headed north to Jackson.

Tallahassee, Florida - #22

I liked this building for some reason. It just looked sleek and clean, with the cool red and white awnings over the windows. Plus...there's palm trees! Tallahassee was a bit off a pain to get to. It just didn't work well in the itinerary. But, we made it work. This was Sunday...so I did some reading (Judges) and Bret drove for a bit. Bought a bag of peaches and then when we left...we took highway 98 along the Guld Coast. BEAUTIFUL! I love the white sand beaches.

We drove to Alligator Point (above picture), just thought it was a cool name...and hoped to see an alligator. Port St. Joe had beautiful white beaches (below pictures).
I put my feet in the Gulf...cause I hadn't done that when I was last at the Gulf of Mexico. As you can see...I have sun-burned feet. I always forget to put sun-tan lotion on my feet. Don't you?
Stopped for lunch at Miss Brenda's. WOW! What a meal. Great sea food - fresh too.

Montgomery, Alabama - #21

Bret is getting better at the night shots. This was a cool building. There's something about the capital buildings at night. We stayed in Troy, Alabama. We found a good price on a motel and took it because it had a FREE buffet breakfast. Unfortunately, a waitress took juice orders from us and then later came back to our table and said that the apple juice was going to be 2.50 per cup. We were saddened because our "FREE" breakfast turned out to be a bit more than we expected. Next time...I'm buying my own apple juice from the store.

Atlanta, Georgia -#20

Like most capital buildings, Atlanta's capital building is located in the down town core. The tractor really adds to the beauty of this picture. I've driven through Atlanta once before and I've been amazed at the lanes of traffic. We got this picture just before sunset. One more to go for the day...

Columbia, South Carolina - #19

After a couple days at Edisto Beach South Carolina and a trip to Savannah, Georgia we headed to Columbia, South Carolina.

Raleigh, North Carolina - #18

A stranger tried to take my picture...but they couldn't figure it out...so I just did one on my own after they left. Thanks anyways! After Raleigh, Bret and took off for Edisto Beach, SC and later Savannah, Georgia (check out http://barryfriesen.blogspot.com/ for that part of the story).

Richmond, Virginia - #17

Richmond, Virginia. Nice little capital building, in a medium size city. Nothing too out of the ordinary at this stop.

Washington, D.C.

Bret and I visited Jacques and Emily (and Dryden) Rancourt last night and then saw Jacques in the hospital this morning to get his ACL repaired. After that we headed to Washington, D.C.! Great city. I had an opportunity to visit here a few years ago and did alot of the museums. This was a quick stop to take a picture at the capital and also to hang out with the Mays. We met them near the Holocaust museum and had a hotdog from a street vender. It was great to see the Mays!

Annapolis, Maryland - #16

So...Bret isn't the best photographer. :)

Dover, Delaware - #15

We missed our exit and ended up taking a scenic route, which turned out great. Ended up in this small town and had crabcakes for supper. Met some locals and had an interesting conversation with them. Delware has tax-free shopping...unfortunately we were on a time crunch.

Trenton, New Jersey - #14

It was great having Bret navigate for me - although a couple of times I missed his directions. Driving between New York and New Jersey really gave me a sense for the industrialized world and how populized (if that's a word) the east coast is. The highest concentration of traffic lanes I've seen (8 lanes of traffic both ways). Trenton was in the middle of all of it. Lots of smog. I took this picture from a pic-nic table. As you can see the paint is peeling. Throughout this trip I realized how much everything breaks down. Many of the capital buildings were having some kind of repair being down to them.

New York City

Driving a convertable through New York city is definitely the way to see the buildings. Although parking is hard to find....so using public transporation is probably the best way to see things. Here is time square in the day time.I took the Stanton Island Ferry from lower Manhattan to see the Statue of Liberty. Its FREE! It doesn't stop at the Statue of Liberty but goes quit close. I went at dusk, so I got to see it with the lights on the way back. Nice boat ride.
I went to the site of the World Trade Center. Very somber. Still no reconstruction. The area is barricaded off - but there are 2 viewing areas. People still are morning loved ones (roses and memorials left around the barricades). I decided that I wanted to go up the Empire State building. Here's a shot of the Empire State building at night:It was cool to see New York at night. Its expensive to go up (18.00 US) and so many people are lined up to use the elevators it took 1.5 hours going up and 1 hour going down. But, it was still good to do it once.
Time square at night. Cool lights.
George Washington bridge.
I picked up my friend Bret to join with me the rest of the journey.

Hartford, Connecticut - #13

I don't remember going here.

Providence, Rhode Island - #12

Nothing too exciting here...I didn't go to the scenic area of Rhode Island. Maybe next time. Oh....I asked some people to take my picture...but they were inmates and said there were not allowed to touch my camera.

Boston, Massachusetts - #11

The map was wrong! Or so I thought. There was no exit 29! (It was actually on the northbound road). So, I took a random exit and actually got to my destination 1/2 hour late. Boston is definitely not a driving city, but I can officially said that I've driven in Boston - downtown and in the Cambridge area. I attended Hope Fellowship Church where my friend Amy Douglas and her husband Troy serve. Later we drove downtown to have sea-food chowder at Quincy Market and get a shot of the capital building. Also met up with Amy Graham (a good friend that went on the Thailand mission trip). It was great to see friends I hadn't seen in a long time. Amy D cooked up a beautiful salmon supper that evening and I stayed over at their place.

Concord, New Hampshire - #10

Before heading to Boston I had to check Concord, New Hampshire off the list. I ran into a young couple that were also doing the 50 state capitals and so we took each other's pictures. Nice little capital building, easy to find, easy to get to.

Augusta, Maine - #9

To get to Augusta from Montpelier I had to take highway 2 across through New Hamsphire. My goal was to make it to Boston Sunday morning, so I decided to go for it, even though I had to drive through the moose invested, windy road at night. I did have to break for a deer - which was my closest call on the whole trip. Augusta is the furthurest north/east capital of the US. Since I traveled through at night I didn't see much....but once again they keep the capital buildings lit up nicely at night. Got to Portland around 1:00am.

Montpelier, Vermont - #8

Besides the coastal drives, Vermont was the most beautiful state to drive through (in these 28 first states). Now, I have to give some of the states a bit of a break because to get to Montpelier, I had to take a couple non-Interstate highways...so it was more scenic. The above pics show some of the beauty of Vermont. It had just rained that day....so there was a beautiful rainbow. Montpelier was named after a city in France and I think there could be a higher French population here since Vermont is near New Brunswick and Quebec. I did meet a bunch of bikers from Quebec - asked them directions. Montpelier is the smallest capital city in US. ...now off to Augusta.