R and J in the USA

Since we decided to end the 50 states part of our trip in our home state of New York and planned to end the trip as a whole with an epilogue in our nation’s capital of Washington DC, there seemed only one place that we could really choose as our final stop on the 50 states itinerary.

We finished the state touring part of our trip with as much an exclamation point as we possibly could, figuratively and, in a way, quite literally.

Our last stop after touring all 50 of these United States was the Statue of Liberty.

What better way to sum up the experience as a whole – exploring, not just a land that treasures freedom and wrestles fully with what it means to do so and how to fully embody that, but in a place where our own ancestors, generations ago, crossed a sea and put us in a position to even be able to make this trip to begin with. The amount of freedoms we both enjoy that made this trip possible and that we got to experience quite fully on this trip is remarkable. We have done our best to appreciate and to savo the all along the way. We are both grateful for the ones we can see and all the ones we don’t even realize we have.

When we were walking around that stunning statue, we found ourselves struck by its stature, its meaning, its beauty and its power at every glance. There are a couple of other places we experienced this in the country – phenomena of nature or a something crafted by the hands of man that take you aback every single time you look at them anew. Something in their beauty and potency just stirs a feeling inside of you and yanks it right to the surface, involuntarily, and at every look. The Statue of Liberty, at least for us, is one of those sights.

As we walked the concourse that circles around it and looked up, it hit us every single time.

With a craned neck, after looking up and feeling it wash over him once again, Ryan captured the sentiment, “It’s cool at every angle.”

Julie agreed.

And we both agreed, here on our final stop of the 50 states touring part of the trip, that what he said was also the perfect way to sum up our experience of the country itself.

There are an infinite amount of angles and nooks and crannies of this country that we didn’t see. But we saw a lot of them. And every angle showed different shapes and forms. Every angle elicited different feelings and experiences. But at the same time, they all elicited a similar feeling and, like the statue, getting to take it all in as part of one whole body, one whole colossus, was a big part of what made it all so striking. We didn’t just see separate places – we saw different folds, different shapes, different angles of one whole something – a something that was partially crafted by nature and partially by the hands of man.

And, without question, we found ourselves struck by its stature, its meaning, its beauty and its power at every glance. Every angle different and unique, but at the same time, a clear part of the whole.

For us, just like the statue that has come to emblemize it, the United States was cool from every angle.