Painting in the Details

My kids and I have a pact to see all 50 states together. During the time we lived just north of Atlanta, Georgia, making day trips to other states was easy. Then we moved back to Texas seven years ago - and not somewhere along the state lines, but central Texas. While I love my hometown of Austin, living here means "day trips" to other states are out of the question, unless you just want to turn around right after you cross a state line and head back home. You're looking at an average of 6 hours in any direction to get to another state. With that in mind, it's easy to understand why our list of states we'd seen together had been stuck at 11 for the past four years. This summer, I was determined we were going to add more states to the list - specifically, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. Technically, I had been through New Mexico on a trip to Colorado when I had just graduated high school, so this was a chance for my kids to catch up on states I had already