The 92 counties collected in 2007 are sort of a golden tan color.
My 2007 trips took me in two different directions and included (voluntary) air transportation for the first time in sixteen years. It was a "New" kind of year in other ways as well, as I finished off New Mexico, New York, and New Jersey.
Individual trips are detailed below.
March 16-23, 2007 (2731)
The 80 counties collected in this trip are the color of Texas rangeland in the early spring.
Since I'm scheduled to work all summer this year, I decided to fit in a trip over OSU's spring break. For the first time since my 1991 honeymoon to Hawai`i, I decided to fly to my destination and rent a car, which allowed me to shorten the duration by four travel days and two hotel nights and to rest my aging vehicle, which has officially seen its last county trip. The flight brought me to Albuquerque, and from there I took the car on a 3,800-mile trek over six days. It turned out to be the ideal time of year for a trip to this region, since temperatures remained below 90° for all but a few hours, and storms only threatened on two afternoons. By the time I returned to Albuquerque, New Mexico was done, much more of Texas was colored in, I had plenty of new pictures and experiences to share with my classes, and I was refreshed and ready for another term at school.
September 8-10, 2007 (2743)
The 12 counties collected in this trip are a sort of goldish color that doesn't really correspond to anything in these states. At least nothing I can think of at the moment.
A quickie 3-day trip to the NYC area with my brother netted 12 new counties, but allowed me to finish a two states. Two of the days were spent getting there and back; the county collecting only took 7½ hours. It turns out that Sunday morning is an ideal time to travel through the city if you're just looking to keep moving, but the downside, of course, is that you don't really get a good feel for the verious neighborhoods.
Starting around 6:00 a.m., we first hit Newark, a place I've heard I really don't want to be at other times. There was no traffic, and the downtown area was surprisingly attractive. Someone there wants to improve the place, and I'm interested in seeing what happens. Jersey City was next, and it's clearly a success story. The downtown area along the Hudson is clean, attractive, and filled with new construction. The view of midtown Manhattan is spectacular, but didn't work for a photo due to the sunrise. From there we hit Elizabeth, then headed through the five boroughs, stopping at the borough hall, city hall, or county courthouse of each. I-278 was closed in Brooklyn that morning, so we detoured along the Belt Pkwy and Ocean Pkwy, seeing Coney Island in the distance. We crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into lower Manhattan around 9:00, still seeing very little traffic besides bicycles involved in a race. After circling City Hall, we headed back to Brooklyn and over to Jamaica, Queens, site of one of the Queens County buildings. From there, the GCP and LIE took us to the seats of Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, and back to Flushing, Queens, where we turned north towards the Bronx. So much of what I'd heard about the Bronx was negative, so I expected the worst when I got there. The courthouse looms above Yankee Stadium, so it's not difficult to reach from the expressway, but once we got there, road construction made it impossible to turn around. After nervously detouring through some neighborhood streets--which in retrospect weren't bad at all--we were back on the Deegan, and New York was done. A few minutes later we were back in Jersey, and stops at the courthouses in Hackensack and Paterson were the last either of us needed to complete that state too.
Obviously, this isn't the way to see New York (or North Jersey, for that matter). Our only stop was for lunch and souvenir-shopping (kids, you know) at the Roosevelt Field Mall in Garden City, L.I., and most of the sights were viewed through windows at 60+ mph. However, this trip was important if only because it let me get the county collecting out of the way so that the next time I return, with my family, I won't have that distraction and will be free to focus on the fun stuff then.
