{"id":76466,"date":"2016-08-09T00:42:19","date_gmt":"2016-08-09T06:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wend.ca\/?p=76466"},"modified":"2021-12-29T16:12:13","modified_gmt":"2021-12-29T21:12:13","slug":"jackson-to-vicksburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/?p=76466","title":{"rendered":"East Coast? West Coast? It’s all the Best Coast."},"content":{"rendered":"

In the chaos of the past two months, I neglected to write about another road trip that happened over the summer… one that was squished between the drive from Denver to Omaha… and the drive from Calgary to Montreal. <\/p>\n

In June, I drove the Civil War route from Jackson Mississippi to Mobile, Alabama.<\/p>\n

\"sm-mobile-2016-06-06<\/p>\n

Compared to the other two journeys, this one was a cakewalk filled with plenty of nice people, restaurants, stops, sights, photos, and pleasant scenery. <\/p>\n

\"sm04-flooding-2016-06-04<\/p>\n

It was also a Yelp badge run… yep that’s nerdy… but uncool and lame… because according to my daughter I don’t do cool things like YouTube or vlog or game or whatever-else-is-cooler-than-a-lame-written-blog. But, luckily, it’s also not PokemonGo, which according to her is one step below the uncoolness of my lame blog.<\/p>\n

My goal for the trip was to try and unlock the hardest Yelp badge to get: the Statesman badge. <\/p>\n

I thought that after flying around Canada (Calgary, Regina, Toronto & Montreal) and the U.S. (California, Nebraska, Colorado) that there’d be a manifestation of this most coveted, unicorn of a Yelp badge. <\/p>\n

\"sm-regina-IMG_5630\"<\/p>\n

But alas, I was denied… even after driving all night to Nebraska… because “Statesman” means the United States and not that country to the North so none of the Canadian travel counted. I had to up my game in the U.S. to hit more states. And, to make it more difficult, visits need to be done within a short period of time (like weeks… and not months).<\/p>\n

So, I planned this little ditty of a week: Canada, Colorado, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama… and reversed it 4-days later. I had immediate trips planned to both California and Nebraska in case this didn’t work. <\/p>\n

Crazy, I know! And it worked because while stepping onto the plane in Jackson, the unicorn finally appeared: <\/p>\n

\"sm-2016-06-04<\/p>\n

Does this make me any richer, funnier, happier, more successful…? Nope. It’s just fun, and after years of travel, it’s hard to find the fun. <\/p>\n

I think that frequent travellers become goal\/list\/status-oriented after a while. For example, when I started this project in Alabama, I was suddenly flooded by “quality visit requests” because we’ve never had a project in Alabama… which means that other co-workers still have to cross off Alabama from their list of 50-states-to-visit\/work in.<\/p>\n

While doing this drive, I discovered something new: the Google “welcome to” badge. While crossing the border into Louisiana, this appeared on my phone:<\/p>\n

\"louisiana\"<\/p>\n

It came with an “achievement unlocked” noise. It must be new to Google and only certain states show because when I crossed over into both Mississippi and Alabama, there was nothing… even though I watched and waited. According to the Internets, the appearance of these badges\/alerts is random and unpredictable.<\/p>\n

Anyhow… welcome to the Southern U.S.\/Civil War journeys…<\/p>\n

\"welcome-mississippi\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\nIn the chaos of the past two months, I neglected to write…\n<\/div>\n
Continue reading “East Coast? West Coast? It’s all the Best Coast.”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[649,648,34],"tags":[468,659],"class_list":["post-76466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jackson-mississippi","category-mississippi","category-us","tag-life-on-the-road","tag-the-south","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t