R and J in the USA

There are lots of kinds of travel in this world. There is traveling for work. There is traveling for vacation and the respite of some time away or the recharge of a change of scenery. There is, of course, the completely utilitarian form of travel that is there simply to get oneself from point A to point B. Then there is travel for discovery and adventure, seeing different places that expand your horizons and fill your spirit with wonder. There is travel for escape and travel for pilgrimage and travel for the purity of movement itself, the freedom of the open road and the satisfaction to the soul when wanderlust is met by ample wandering. 

On this trip, we have partaken of most all of these different kinds of travel.

There is another kind of travel and one that is central to our trip – travel as participation – travel as a way to attempt to take in the completeness of a thing or a place. This one is a bit harder to explain the why behind it. The ”what”, however, is fairly simple. It is a list of boxes to be checked, to be able to know and to say that you’ve been to all of something. To describe it in this way, as simply as what it is, a set of boxes to be checked, can sound reductive and decidedly unromantic. Yet there is something particularly romantic about this kind of travel for those that are drawn to it. There is something about the motivation that is hard to explain, but, nevertheless, is rooted in something deep and meaningful. We CERTAINLY know this kind of travel, especially Julie. We have many of those lists. Of course, the most obvious one is the list of 50 states that we are committed to visiting. Then, within the state, our ambition and commitment to run a 5K in each of them and to visit each capital city and capitol building (including getting the capitol stamp in our capitol visit booklet, because there are enough people that feel this same drive to check them all off the list as we do) and, for Julie, the drive to swim, bike and run in each state. 

What is this drive all about? Why is it strong enough to fuel tremendous investment of time, energy and dollars to make it happen? We are not exactly sure. Is it the adventure? The experiences? The connection to place? The education? The enrichment? Or the just-causeness? Like Edmund Hillary – when asked why he climbed Mount Everest – is it just “because it was there”? It’s all of these things and more. And there is something else to it that is harder to put into words – but if you have it in you – no words are necessary to describe it. It is simply understood.

What we are sure of is that, whatever that drive is, a gentleman we met at the state capitol of Kansas certainly understands. Because he has it too.

We noticed Elijah a few times as we wandered the expansive halls of the Kansas statehouse among the handful of 5 or 6 other capitol visitors that were also wandering through the massive open spaces of the building. He was wandering through the architecture, the sculptures, paintings and plaques memorializing history with the kind of attentive eye and curiosity we recognized as similar to our own. 

We didn’t meet Elijah until Julie was thumbing through t-shirts in the gift shop and heard Elijah speaking with the woman at the checkout about his visit to the top of the dome of Kansas’ statehouse and wonder out loud about whether there was another capitol where you could travel to the dome. We were bummed to have arrived at the capitol too late to join in the last tour and the last tour to the top of the dome of the day. As Julie was unintentionally eavesdropping she began plumbing her brain for which capitol it was where we had gotten to climb the steps into its massive dome. She could picture the dome, standing on the very thin pathway around its bulge, peering over the mini colonnade structure in front of you that served as a railing to keep you from tumbling the multiple floors down to the bottom floor of the building. It was such a cool thing to visit and most of our capitol visits we have found easy to recall. How is it possible that I can’t remember which one it was? Julie was thinking, when Elijah began talking with the woman at the checkout counter about the Nebraska statehouse and how amazing it was. It was at that point that Julie couldn’t resist jumping in.

”We just went to the Nebraska capitol and we thought it was amazing too!”

Elijah and the woman at the checkout turned to welcome Julie into the conversation.

Elijah’s face seemed to perk up with a combination of interest and excitement at a fellow capitol traveler. 

“The architecture of it was so amazing and so rich. And, so much art.” Elijah continued with Julie echoing back the same sentiments.

Julie and Elijah began comparing notes on various capitol buildings and how many we each had left. Elijah was also about halfway through them all, having seen an overlapping set of states to us. Eventually it came out in the conversation that we were doing it all in one trip and Elijah and the woman behind the counter’s eyes widened at the size of the undertaking to be on the road for 10 months straight. Our conversations bounced all around the country’s capitols and Ryan showed up somewhere in there to join in the comparing notes festivities. Elijah mentioned how he had thought Michigan’s dome had a European feel to it and began to tell us about some we hadn’t been to yet, getting us excited for Louisiana’s capitol as he recounted it’s unique form of splendor.

When we said, “So far, we haven’t seen a capitol yet that hasn’t filled us with some kind of awe.”, Elijah responded, “Have you been to Florida yet?”

”No. Not yet.” We replied having a sense from his tone that Florida’s would have little architectural awe to provide.

”It’s basically just an office building.” He said.

Alaska’s capitol was also, basically an office building, but it had enough flare to still be fascinating and beautiful to us, filled with tremendous history and art, even if in a less ornate and architecturally stunning way – so we are looking forward to finding out what “just an office building” was going to look like in Florida’s case. 

We enjoyed conversing with Elijah, not only in comparing travel notes with him, but it was also nice to connect with someone who also had that drive to see each of the capitols with a deep interest in their architectural value and the stories they had to tell.

We ran into Elijah again as we were leaving the capitol and asked him what got him on this path and he told us of how he had started traveling and getting hooked on history. We could relate to what he said, but also suspected he was having trouble putting the true essence of the reason into words. He then pulled out this wonderful old bright yellow pencil box that looked like it was made a while ago. He explained how it had been his grandmother’s and, while his dad and uncle had been cleaning out her house, he had asked if he could keep it when he came upon it amidst her things. He showed us the front where there was a map of the United States and how, on either side of the map there was a little viewing window attached to a spinning wheel that was located on the edge of the pencil box. Inside the viewing window, there was a white film with some words written on it. When you spun the wheel, the film would shift and reveal different words. On the right, the series of words were the names of different states. On the left were the capitals of each state. 

With that yellow box in hand, Elijah had been struck by an idea – to get a picture of himself in front of each capitol building holding his grandmother’s yellow pencil box. He had already been visiting state capitals before the box, but with it in hand, he was now committed to get a picture of himself with it in front of them each.

We asked Elijah where his next state was and he answered by first letting us know that he had started his capital visits before he started taking the pictures with the box and that, though he had already been to Missouri’s, he didn’t have the picture yet to show for it.

”So, that’s my next state.” He said, almost like an admission. “Missouri. So I can get my picture with it. It probably doesn’t make much sense to go back just for that.”

”No, Elijah, it does. We absolutely get it.” Julie said.

And we do. It’s more than just some anal retentive need to check off all the boxes (though that part is deeply, deeply satisfying). We can’t say exactly what it is or why it matters, but, we feel you, Elijah. It most definitely does.