Just Tennessee — I didn’t get out much in June. Too much work!

Adding things up at the end of the month, I had a minor crisis: Tennessee was #40, and there are 10 states yet to be spotted: Nevada, New Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii, West Virginia, and that upper West/Midwest cluster of Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. 40 + 10 = 50. Yes, there are 50 states, but I count D.C. (51st state!), so the total should be 51.

After much counting and re-counting, backwards and forwards, matching numbers with states, I realized that I’d colored Vermont in but hadn’t given it a number or written it on the list. Vermont always shows up in January, usually in the top 10, and I’ve seen a bunch of them since then — most recently yesterday. Sticking it in at #41 didn’t seem right, and no way was I going to renumber the whole map.

So — as you’ll see on the July map — I added it on the same line as New Hampshire, #9, and called it #9A. Sorry about that, Vermont!