A Look Ahead to 2020

Now that I’ve completed my 12-day journey to ride in eight new states (not to mention adding the Province of Ontario to my list of places I’ve ridden), did the Hotter N Hell Hundred in Wichita Falls, Texas for the 15^th time, visited two more major league ballparks, put 275 miles of riding on my bicycle but almost 4,000 (3,991) on my car, I’ve already become anxious to get the seven additional states to have all 50 and the four additional ballparks that I’ve yet to visit.  My goal is to complete this quest by my 70^th birthday around this time next year.

For those who haven’t followed the last two weeks closely, I’ve added the following states (in order) to bring my cycling total to 43 states: 
Tennessee
Mississippi and Louisiana
Arkansas
Illinois and Missouri
Indiana and Michigan.  

I also rode in Texas, but that was not a new state for me (I first rode there in 1996 when I lived there) and Ontario, but that’s a Canadian Province and I have no intention of trying to get all 13 provinces and territories. The two ballparks visited on this trip were SunTrust Field in Atlanta and Comerica Park in Detroit. 

I’m already thinking about how to get the remaining states and ballparks next year.  The remaining states fall into three groups, with all the states within each group being adjacent:  

Montana-North Dakota
Iowa-Nebraska
Colorado-Utah-Nevada

Additionally there are four ballparks left, although with a bit of a wrinkle:

Milwaukee
Kansas City
Denver
San Francisco

The wrinkle is the Texas Rangers in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.  Although their current ballpark, Globe Life Park, opened as recently as 1994, they will be moving into a new ballpark in 2020.  I’ve been to Globe Life Park several times, but once the new ballpark opens, even if I’ve gotten the four missing ballparks I will no longer have all 30 active stadiums, because Globe Life Park will no longer be active and the new ballpark will be.   

So this has added a whole new wrinkle to next year’s trip planning.  Do I do three trips that combine cycling and ballgames?  Or do I do the Denver and San Francisco ballparks in conjunction with the Colorado-Utah-Nevada cycling trip, do a non-cycling trip that goes to ballparks in Milwaukee, Kansas City and Dallas, and then try to combine Iowa, Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota into a single cycling trip?  I guess I have many months to figure it out, and I’m open to any suggestions you may have.

Since I do not anticipate getting any more new states in 2019, I’ll leave you with the final scorecard for this year.  Look for the next post in this blog to probably not be made until early next year when I begin to finalize my plans for 2020.

So I’ll leave you with the final scorecard of states for 2019.  I hope that the rest of your year is enjoyable.

Keep pedaling,

Bruce

 

50 State Scorecard
(as of Sept. 2, 2019)

NEW ENGLAND		SOUTHWEST
X	Maine	X	Oklahoma
X	New Hampshire	X	Texas
X	Vermont	X	New Mexico
X	Massachusetts	X	Arizona
X	Rhode Island	WEST
X	Connecticut	20	Montana
NORTHEAST		20	Colorado
X	New York	X	Wyoming
X	New Jersey	X	Idaho
X	Pennsylvania	20	Utah
X	Delaware	20	Nevada
X	Maryland	X	Washington
X	West Virginia	X	Oregon
X	Virginia	X	California
SOUTHEAST		X	Hawaii
X	North Carolina	X	Alaska
X	South Carolina
X	Tennessee
X	Georgia	Summary
X	Florida	43	States already ridden (X)
X	Alabama	7	States to be ridden  in 2020 (20)
X	Mississippi
X	Louisiana
MIDWEST
X	Ohio
X	Michigan
X	Indiana
X	Illinois
X	Kentucky
X	Wisconsin
X	Minnesota
20	Iowa
X	Missouri
X	Arkansas
20	North Dakota
X	South Dakota
20	Nebraska
X	Kansas