COUNTIES (pre-1983) This basically boils down to "When I Was a Kid." Trip details: The four-county-wide band across the Kansas and Missouri borders is repeated trips from Kansas City to Joplin and Neosho, Missouri, where my mom's family lived. Trips to Tulsa to visit family. Trips to Wichita to visit family. Trips to Emporia, Kansas with my grandmother while shuttling my aunt to college at Emporia State A trip from Joplin to St. Louis when I was spending a summer with an aunt and uncle down there, as a tag-along with their two boys while they took their daughter's Girl Scout troop on an extended field trip (Cardinals game, Busch Gardens, the Arch, Six Flags over Mid-America... the whole works). One should not take a 13-year-old and two 12-year-old males on a field trip with 12-14-year-old Girl Scouts, for future reference. A trip to the 1976 National Speleological Society annual convention at Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. A trip to the 1977 NSS annual convention at New Braunfels, Texas. Various spelological jaunts around southeast Missouri and northeast Arkansas. (Speleology, for those who didn't click the above link, is much the same as spelunking, except with a purpose -- for example, we actually hauled in surveying equipment and mapped caves, catalogued subterranean life, and were properly equipped with lots of rope, ascent/descent equipment, wet suits, that sort of thing.) COUNTIES ACCUMULATED PRIOR TO 1984: Arkansas: Benton, Boone, Carroll, Clay, Fulton, Greene, Izard, Newton, Randolph, Searcy, Sharp, Stone (12/75, 16%) Illinois: Bond, Clark, Cumberland, Effingham, Fayette, Madison, Pulaski, Saint Clair (8/102, 8%) Indiana: Clay, Hancock, Hendricks, Henry, Marion, Morgan, Putnam, Vigo, Wayne (9/92, 10%) Kansas: Bourbon, Butler, Chase, Cherokee, Coffey, Crawford, Franklin, Johnson, Leavenworth, Linn, Lyon, Marion, McPherson, Miami, Osage, Wyandotte (17/105, 16%) Kentucky: Ballard, Barren, Butler, Caldwell, Edmonson, Hart, Hopkins, Livingston, Lyon, Marshall, McCracken, Muhlenberg, Ohio, Simpson, Warren (15/120, 13%) Missouri: Barry, Barton, Bates, Benton, Boone, Butler, Callaway, Cass, Cedar, Christian, Clay, Cooper, Crawford, Dade, Dunklin, Franklin, Henry, Hickory, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson, Laclede, Lafayette, Lawrence, McDonald, Mississippi, Montgomery, New Madrid, Newton, Ozark, Pemiscot, Pettis, Phelps, Polk, Pulaski, Ripley, Saint Charles, Saint Clair, Saint Louis, Saint Louis City, Saline, Scott, Stoddard, Stone, Taney, Vernon, Warren, Webster (49/115, 43%) Ohio: Butler, Clark, Greene, Montgomery, Preble, Warren (6/88, 7%) Oklahoma: Atoka, Bryan, Craig, Delaware, Mayes, McIntosh, Muskogee, Ottawa, Pittsburg, Rogers, Tulsa, Wagoner (12/77, 16%) Tennessee: Benton, Cheatham, Crockett, Davidson, Decatur, Dickson, Dyer, Henderson, Hickman, Humphreys, Madison, Robertson, Sumner, Williamson (14/95, 15%) Texas: Bell, Bexar, Collin, Comal, Dallas, Ellis, Falls, Grayson, Hays, Hill, McLennan, Travis, Williamson (13/254, 5%) TOTAL UNITED STATES: (155/3142, 4.9%) TOTAL US & CANADA: (155/3462, 4.5%) Somehow, when I did the maps, I got my numbers wrong; the text above is correct. Temporary back "button" until I update the sidebar