5343. Go to all the counties in Wisconsin

 Driving to work one day back in like 2002 or 2003, I heard the morning show talk about someone visiting all the counties in the US. I decided that would be fun to try to do. I had no real intention of actually even coming close to doing it. There is an actual group called Extra Miler Club that you can join to track all your counties which I have not joined but maybe one day.

I've been religiously tracking the counties we've been through on all of our road trips. I have a binder of maps that I color when we get back. The hubby helps point out when we cross a county line. 

Fast-forward to 2020 and the pandemic hits. Instead of hitting new baseball stadiums (and states), the hubby thought maybe we could cross off the rest of the counties in Wisconsin that I have not visited yet. There were only 5 I had left to visit. There were 2 in the southwest part of the state, 2 in the northwest part of the state, and 1 in the Northwoods.

We planned a day trip to the southwest part of the state in June to cross off Richland and Vernon County. This included a stop in Richland Center to cross the suspension bridge.

We did another day trip to the northwest part of the state in August to cross off Burnett and Rusk counties. There is not much up in these counties. We did stop to see the trains in Ladysmith before visiting friends in Eau Claire.

We decided to hit Iron County in fall to see the fall colors. Initially I thought about going all the way up to Hurley but changed my mind and decided on a county park in Iron County. A change in plans got us to neither but we did drive through Iron County and I got to stop and take a picture of a giant corkscrew.

I did it. All 72 counties in Wisconsin have been at least driven through with many of them having done something in. Some I purposely went out my way to get (Crawford, Monroe). Others I took a road trip to get to (Pepin). I can thank my brother for wanting to check out collages in La Crosse, River Falls, and Superior. A high school ecology trip brought me from Port Washington to Eagle River. You never know how you going to get to a county but sometimes the stories behind the visit are just as fun as the road trip itself. 

Now to focus on the other 49 states and their counties. There are a couple that I am close in going through all the counties -- Delaware (2), Rhode Island (2), Connecticut (4). The next one I really want to try to get to all the counties in is Arizona. We only have 7 left but some of those are going to prove difficult.

Challenge yourself and see how many counties or states you can get to in a life time. It is all about discovering new things and new places.