We Interrupt This Broadcast to Bring You: Ten Years!

Hello yes thank you.

As of this month it has now been Ten!!!  Entire!!!  Years!!!  Since starting this blog.  Despite a few lulls over the years, I am still a big fan.  This thing is great.  It serves the same function as an old-school photo album for me, allowing me to look back on cherished memories and revisit old times.  It apparently allows that for others that were with me on these trips as well, much to my surprise!  That anyone would ever reach out to me to tell me how much they enjoyed re-reading about a trip somewhere is completely amazing.

In my very first post, I showed a picture of myself for reference:

Here, now, is a more recent photo of me:

Older n' fatter.  It happens.

In my last anniversary post, the Five Year anniversary, I posted a few stats about my trips as of that writing.  Rather than just repeat with updated numbers, I thought I'd do a few different stats, some that relate to the content of this blog, but stretch beyond its scope.  Here we go!

A few bucket list numbers:

# of States visited: 35

# of State Capitals visited: 20

# of National Parks visited: 16 (paltry!  Gotta pump those numbers up!)

# of Countries visited (excluding U.S.): 15

# of Country Capitals visited (including U.S.): 12

Blog Stats:

Total trips recorded in this blog: 72

Total days spent traveling since August 2012: 246

The year with the most # of days spent traveling was 2017, with 46, fully 12.6% of the year.  No surprise there - that was a truly crazy year of travel, mostly through the UofL Choirs.

The year with the lowest number of travel days was, oddly enough, 2014, with 6.  Not 2020 when the world shut down, or 2022 when I moved back to Charlotte and started a new job.  No real idea on why that was.  I went to Lexington, Indianapolis, and Chicago - and that was it.

And finally, once again, a smattering of favorites and highlights, from trips taken since the five year anniversary post:

Indiana Dunes and the coolest photo I've taken - https://mattwetmore.blogspot.com/2019/08/michigan-city-in-and-new-buffalo-mi.html

Irish Evensong - https://mattwetmore.blogspot.com/2019/10/dublin-ireland-september-4-7-2019.html

Knoxville during covid - https://mattwetmore.blogspot.com/2020/06/knoxville-tn-june-11-13-2020-fun-in-sun.html

Acadia - https://mattwetmore.blogspot.com/2021/06/bangor-and-bar-harbor-me-june-26-28.html

The Pristine Nowhere of North Dakota - https://mattwetmore.blogspot.com/2021/07/medora-nd-july-30-31-2021-teddy.html

An American History tour with Clayford - https://mattwetmore.blogspot.com/2022/05/dover-and-wilmington-de-and.html

And the newest member of the club, Wishigan - https://mattwetmore.blogspot.com/2023/09/milwaukee-wi-september-2-2023-wishigan.html

As for what's next, be on the lookout for the rest of Wishigan, to be posted later this Whenever!

After that, I really don't know.  I'm one of those people now.  Got a 9-5 job and weeknight commitments!  I've dove head first into the choral scene here in Charlotte and that takes quite a lot of time.  But there's no reason to think I won't still get out there from time to time and see more of this fantastic world.

15 Year Anniversary here I come!