Three states were still missing when the clock ran out on 2022, but it’s a great year when not only Alaska and Hawaii are on the map but so are South and North Dakota. NB: There was no November report because I procrastinated but I did spot Arkansas on the Beach Road that month. Arkansas is a pretty big deal most years, but when Alaska, Hawaii, and both Dakotas are already on the map, it’s a bit of an anticlimax.

The AWOL states are Wyoming, Nebraska, and West Virginia. I don’t think any of my fellow license-plate spotters saw Wyoming, so maybe it wasn’t here. I don’t really believe that; I’m convinced that all 50 states make their appearance on the Vineyard at some point during the year, but you have to be in the right place at the right time to spot them. Liz Cheney, come visit, and bring your car!

Most years the pickins are pretty slim in the fall, but last year’s end-of-year report reminds me that I spotted Wyoming in December 2021. In 2014, Nebraska showed up in Oak Bluffs on the 29th of December. So I don’t entirely give up hope. Yesterday I cruised through the hospital parking lot on my way to OB. The hospital parking lot is reliably a gold mine for out-of-state plates. Saturday, however, it’s pretty deserted, but back in August I spotted North Dakota there on a Saturday. I owed this to a tip from sister spotter Ellen M., who’d seen it the previous weekend. So guess what? North Dakota was there yesterday, around back, where I’d seen it before. Someone from North Dakota must be on temporary assignment at the hospital, or maybe they’ve actually moved here but not changed their registration yet. You bet I’m going to cruise through next Saturday.

So we’re off to a new year of the license plate game. Thanks to the late Don Lyons who got me started, back around 1988 when we were colleagues at the Martha’s Vineyard Times. Here’s what the 2023 map looks like right now. Yes, I know there are four cars with Massachusetts plates out in the driveway, three of which do not belong to me, but I have not seen their plates yet. That matters. The game does have rules, you know. 🙂