-
Continue reading →: Oregon – Dad Catches UpDad missed the Oregon stop when Mom and the kids visited in 2018. In an effort to get back in synch with the #gates50states project, Mom & Dad visited over a few days in 2025.
-
Continue reading →: FloridaOur most visited state! Also the state we’ve blended in with the most. It’s worth dealing with the humidity and the bugs from time to time to enjoy everything else Florida has to offer.
-
Continue reading →: TennesseeFrom the get-go, because we’ve got family in The Volunteer State, and because it’s a crossroads to the South, we’d planned on taking Tennessee in small bites over the years.
-
Continue reading →: From the Archives – A Look BackVideo from past travels resurfaces and brings back memories with it.
-
Continue reading →: DelawareAfter planning to include Delaware in our Spring Break 2025 travels, then dropping it, then adding it again, we were glad to have visited when we did. Score one for the DuPonts.
-
Continue reading →: MarylandFrom oystering to the Naval Academy, we got a good glimpse of the importance of nautical life to the Maryland area.
-
Continue reading →: VirginiaVirginia is for lovers, and for the #Gates50States Spring Break 2025 tour stop. With some scheduled visits and room for improvising, we left having enjoyed what Virginia offered.
-
Continue reading →: VA/DE/MD – in Lydia’s wordsLydia shares the kids’ version of events from Spring Break 2025: VA/DE/MD
-
Continue reading →: Staniel Cay, Exuma, Bahamas – Date TripThe water really looks like this. The sand really is that soft. The food really is that good. The vibe really is that chill. There’s nothing not to love about Staniel Cay and the Staniel Cay Yacht Club experience.
-
Continue reading →: UtahJust like with Hawaii, though for different reasons, we knew this one was going to be huge. Along with Alaska and Hawaii, this one took the most effort at the outset in ~2014 in determining when in the grand scheme of #Gates50States we’d visit.
-
Continue reading →: HawaiiThis was about experiences, not stuff, and we went heavy on the experiences. Boating, surfing, hiking, snorkeling, good food, and relaxing downtime. We enjoyed more than we thought we would on our visit to Hawaii.
-
Continue reading →: Ohio – 2024 Total Solar EclipseThis post is more about my memories, but if it sparks joy and amazement in you, that’ll make me happy, too. And while the 2024 solar eclipse wasn’t uniquely Ohio, a relative small portion of the planet got to experience it like we did in Ohio, and it crossed our…
-
Continue reading →: South Carolina… again!We like Hilton Head, South Carolina. We really, really like it there. We told of our first visit in this post, from 2015, and though we didn’t mention it on this blog, we made our second visit to HHI during the second week of the…
-
Continue reading →: Hawaii – Date TripTacked onto a continuing education trip, we scouted Hawaii before our official #gates50states tour stop.
-
Continue reading →: Florida – bonus date time, etc.Circumstances gave us some extra travel to some of our favorite spots. We seized the opportunity for paddle boarding, reconnecting with a friend, and achieving some old goals.
-
Continue reading →: ArkansasWe employed a bit of a different strategy for this tour stop, setting up shop in one area for a few items of a more relaxing stop as opposed to a blitzing tour through the entire state. This proved to be a good conclusion to our Spring Break 2023 road…
-
Continue reading →: KansasWe wonder how many families spend their spring break time driving through and visiting Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Pretty sure it’s close to none. But that’s how we spent ours, filling in our map, one state at a time, and three states on this trip. Apparently many business, restaurants, and…
-
Continue reading →: OklahomaOklahoma is Sooners, oil, cattle, and wide open spaces. Well, we didn’t drill too much into the oil, but we definitely took in the other aspects, and in an efficient way on a long road trip.
-
Continue reading →: New MexicoAfter a week in Texas, we arrived in Las Cruces to begin our New Mexico experience. It was very hot and dry, and we’d not recommend visiting New Mexico during this season, but it was the time off we had, so we forged ahead. As is our strategy, we stayed…
-
Continue reading →: CaliforniaCalifornia was quite a bit of a project for us. It’s huge. It’s varied. It’s beautiful. And we took it in bite sized trips over several years. We bundled northern California with our 2018 Oregon and Washington trip. As we flew into San Francisco and drove up the coast to…
-
Continue reading →: Half-Way PointThe Gates kids recall their favorite memories of the first half of #gates50states.
-
Continue reading →: TexasWe visited Texas during an oppressively hot time, and we wouldn’t necessarily recommend this to other families. But when you get the time off, you’ve got to take advantage, and we found lots to enjoy and experience despite the hot, dry conditions.
-
Continue reading →: MississippiOnce again, Jenn hit an absolute home run finding a house with a great view, great access to what we want to do, and enough bedrooms to split up the kids (perhaps the most important item). Though the weather wasn’t ideal for us, the kids got to play on the…
-
Continue reading →: LouisianaSaying, “No,” to so many seemingly very neat things and items in each state is the hardest part of this whole project. We wanted to get this said again because we know our Southern, and especially our Louisiana friends and readers, will cringe at the thought of our spending most…
-
Continue reading →: Side Trip – Rocky Mountain NP & Scottsbluff NMEstes Park received its first appreciable snowfall of the season the evening we arrived, and thankfully the roads weren’t in bad shape for us. We awakened to several inches of soft snow the next morning and a beautiful sky under which to hike. Any semblance of warm temperatures were not…
-
Continue reading →: Wyoming – Some Extras!We’ve written about our experiences in Yellowstone and Grand Teton, and I really didn’t think we’d have reason to get back to Wyoming during our #gates50states adventures. But among the many cool aspects of our goal is… you just never know where life is going to take you.
-
Continue reading →: IndianaWouldn’t it be neat if that was not the last time one or more of the kids played on those courts?
-
Continue reading →: ArizonaWe set the kids’ expectations long before the early morning, and they were really good about getting up and getting moving without complaint. The drive was pretty non-descript in the dark, and nautical twilight emerged as we approached the parking lot.
-
Continue reading →: North DakotaFrom the #gates50states get-go, we were looking forward with great anticipation to our time in North Dakota, and it did not disappoint.
-
Continue reading →: Nebraska
Ask our kids what was the highlight of their 2020 #gates50states summer trip, and you’ll get the same answer from each. Read about it here.
-
Continue reading →: NevadaTaking kids to Las Vegas is a tricky thing. The smut is all around, but we’re here to tell you it can be avoided for the most part, and what can’t be avoided can be used as object lessons for home education. Of course there are amazing restaurants, interesting people…
-
Continue reading →: South DakotaThere wasn’t much about South Dakota we didn’t absolutely love. The people, the landscape, the wildlife, even the weather, it was all great. People in our area of the country always raise, “But what about winter in South Dakota?” Well, we do winter in gray, dreary, Ohio… how bad could…
-
Continue reading →: IowaWe were looking forward to learning about Iowa, the important role they’ve played in our nation, and some of the things that make it unique. We weren’t disappointed.
-
Continue reading →: MissouriThe kids have grown up listening to the stories of Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Becky Thatcher and the rest, so we made Mark Twain a priority on our visit to Missouri.
-
Continue reading →: IllinoisWe took Illinois in two bites on our #Gates50States adventure, visiting Springfield on our way to Missouri, then Galena, Moline, Peoria and a couple of State Parks on the way back home from Iowa.
-
Continue reading →: Montana – Smokejumper!On our drive between Glacier National Park and our final couple of days in Idaho, we had one of those special moments that just can’t be planned for, and it occurred in Missoula, Montana. During the planning phase for this adventure, I’d stumbled across the Smokejumper Visitor Center in Missoula,…
-
Continue reading →: Side Trip – Apache JunctionLittle did we know, the joke was to be on us, as we arrived in Arizona just in time for one of their greatest snowfalls south of Flagstaff.
-
Continue reading →: Washington, pt. 3We had okay expectations going in, and we left stunned and amazed. In fact, until this trip, we’d never heard of the Methow Valley, yet after spending a few days in the area, it’s on the list of places to consider purchasing a vacation home.
-
Continue reading →: Washington, pt. 2I took Lincoln along with my family up to Pebble Creek via the Skyline Trail, exactly halfway up the mountain, while Ryan stayed with the younger ones for some tooling around the trails adjacent to the Paradise Visitor’s Center. We were all in for a cool, wet, foggy morning. Again, get there…
-
Continue reading →: Washington, pt. 1The biggest challenge in our #Gates50States adventure is saying, “No,” to so many neat/cool/unique places and events and attractions in each state. There just isn’t enough time to take in all that every state has to offer. Nowhere has this been more true to date for us than Washington state.
-
Continue reading →: GeorgiaWhy go to the Georgia coast with kids and not hit the beach? We couldn’t think of a reason either. The beach was fun…. the water was cold. Funny thing about our kids, though, they’re not phased by cold water.
-
Continue reading →: AlabamaWhen planning our strategy from the get-go, we needed to settle on some places that would fit for driving and not flying. The thought of spending spring break in the South and visiting Ryan’s sister’s family on our drive home from Alabama was appealing. We spent the first leg of…
-
Continue reading →: OregonWe moved on to coastal Oregon, a must-see for families. Our kids could easily spend several weeks building sandcastles and throwing small rocks and shells back into the freezing cold Pacific. Seriously, it’s cold! Did the kids care? Not really. Waves are waves no matter how cold they are.
-
Continue reading →: Kentucky – A Bonus Weekend w/ HorsesWith one boy spending a week at Stony Lake with one set of grandparents, and the other boy spending a weekend in Columbus with the other set of grandparents, we had a weekend with just the girl and Ryan didn’t have to work on Saturday. What to do? Lexington, KY,…
-
Continue reading →: Side Trip – PittsburghA close-by city for a family weekend getaway for us not named Columbus… Pittsburgh was the easy choice. Prior to Lydia & Henry’s arrival, we’d stopped by the Pittsburg Zoo on our way home from North Carolina a number of years ago to break up the trip, and we decided to…
-
Continue reading →: Side Trip – ChicagoChicago is an amazing city with a beautiful city plan, world class museums just short walks from each other, and as good of resteraunts as you could want within an easy walk of wherever you happen to find yourself at the moment.
-
Continue reading →: Disney World – The 51st StateThe Gates Family vacation to Disney World in 2014 was a whole lot of fun and a whole bunch of memory-making. We needed to do Disney while the kids were young enough to really grasp the magic, but old enough for them to have the stamina to really do Disney. …
-
Continue reading →: MichiganThe great state of Michagan has much to offer in terms of history, industry, and scenery, which, as always, makes it difficult to condense the type of trip we enjoy into a short period of time. Even the northern reaches of lower Michigan are within about 6.5 hrs, so we…
-
Continue reading →: Ohio – Hocking HillsA jewel of Ohio, Hocking Hills State Park and the surrounding trail heads and cabins for rent make for the quintessential Ohio Side Trip.
-
Continue reading →: WisconsinWe had a pretty good list of activities for our time in Wisconsin but no specific itinerary. We chose the small city of Neenah as our home base. Although it wasn’t the most picturesque of towns, the location was perfect for visiting the museums of Appleton, Oshkosh and Green Bay.…
-
Continue reading →: Montana – Glacier National ParkMontana, specifically Glacier National Park (GNP), was the next stop on our quest to explore ID, WY and MT the summer of 2016. Leaving Yellowstone was difficult…emotionally – it was an amazingly unique experience that was hard to let go and physically – a momma black bear with two rambunctious…
-
Continue reading →: Wyoming – YellowstoneThe real slow down occurs once you enter the park and for good reason. Wildlife could be on the road just about anywhere.
-
Continue reading →: KentuckySettling on Mammoth Cave was easy considering our interest for America’s National Parks. What wasn’t so easy was realizing Mammoth Cave was a pretty popular place even at the beginning of April. Turns out not everyone goes to Florida and the Bahamas for…
-
Continue reading →: Wyoming – Grand TetonWe prefer a more peaceful (i.e. less populated) trail and swimming area, so we just kept hiking north towards Leigh Lake until the crowds thinned out and we found something appealing. In late June the water was still freezing. Of course, the kids didn’t mind that much, but the adults…
-
Continue reading →: GenovesaGenovesa, commonly known as “Bird Island,” is located in the northeast section of the Archipelago. After a very long and sleepless night from Mosquera, it was with an exhausted but giddy attitude that we hopped into the panga for our wet landing on the beach of Darwin’s Bay for our…
-
Continue reading →: Galápagos-Starting the JourneyNo amount of research and intellectual knowledge prepared us for how intense the interactions were with animals of all kinds.
-
Continue reading →: Galápagos PlanningWe ended up choosing the Samba, a 78′, fourteen-guest, family-owned yacht sailing out of Santa Cruz/Baltra. They only use top notch naturalists and the small crew was fantastic! It wasn’t fancy -the cabins were tiny and there were definitely no frills on board. Having said that, we had a truly…
-
Continue reading →: Ohio – Columbus Children’s TheaterIt doesn’t look like much from the outside, and the inside reflects the shoestring budget that they must operate on, but the quality of entertainment for the countless kids that make their way through the theater is really, really good.
Hello,
from the Gates Family!
Way back, we formed a plan to visit all fifty states with our kids before our oldest finished college. Simply passing through a state wouldn’t count as a visit. Instead, we’d investigate places and themes that make each state unique to the union.
This required choosing age-appropriate states and activities all along the way, and the plan has always been fluid. Our only obligation is to ourselves and our kids (there are no outside rules for this project) and the most difficult part of this project has always been saying, “No,” to so many cool and interesting things in so many states.
The adventures we do plan? Wonderful!
The adventures we’ve stumbled upon without planning? Amazing!
Whether you’re looking for inspiration for your own family, or you’ve crossed paths with us and you’re following up with our own brand of craziness, take your time as you peruse the posts. We really hope you enjoy them.
#Gates50States 