R and J in the USA

On Thursday, May 30th, 2024, our 50 States Tour officially began! And it was glorious.

We left pretty close to our intended departure time. The house was occupied with renters, packed, and taken care of; the van was upgraded, checked up, packed and organized; and we were ready and itching to hit the road.

After the requisite stops to get proper hugs and send-offs from our neighbors and our respective parents, we made the almost seven hour drive to our campground in Greenbelt, MD, and settled in for our first night on the road with the doors open and the setting sun and sounds of the woods flowing in.

Our first day, we took a Trolly Tour on the National Mall, got our pictures in front of the Capitol Building and the White House, paid way too much for parking at Union Station despite the ample inexpensive parking available on Ohio Drive, and checked out the White House Visitor Center. And Ryan rode an electric scooter for the first time!

With time limited, we decided to forgo our visit inside the Capitol Building until after we had “earned it” by visiting the 50 states yet to come and going inside each of their capitol buildings. On our way back to the car, we ended up walking alongside a Capitol Policeman. You can read about our chat in our People Along the Way section. Before leaving our nation’s capital, we decided we’d finish the 50 States Tour with another longer trip to DC after our 50th state was complete. Though we have both been to DC many times before, there was still so much we hadn’t seen yet and we decided that having enough time to do so was the perfect way to finish up the trip as a whole. We left the National Mall with many sites and museums unvisited, but partook of enough of our nation’s capital to feel fully in the spirit.

By the afternoon, we squeezed in our first Virginia site at Mount Vernon, which, coupled with the visit to the National Mall, was symbolically a great way to kick off a trip to get to know these United 50 States of America. The visit was inspiring, sobering, and just right.

We left with a renewed spirit, a deeper education of our nation’s history and beginnings, and more than just a box of USA trivia from the gift store. We spent the evening once again at Greenbelt Campground in Maryland. The next morning we made our way to Georgetown, where we would run our first 5K of the trip in support of a great cause called Warriors Ethos. You can read more about the race in our 5Ks in 50 States section. Julie walked away with her first age group medal and the first seeds of her false sense of security that she could easily beat Ryan in all of the 50 races to come.

With our first 5K under our belt and our mini American flags waving, on June 1st we headed off to our first state of the trip, Virginia, sweaty, eager and ready to R O C K in the USA, Ryan and Julie style.