2024 is off to an excellent start! January inevitably brings the biggest haul in the license plate game, so the significant question is “how big?” Twenty-eight states — OK, 27 states plus D.C. — is big. Maybe not the biggest ever — I have this vague recollection of hitting 30 one January, but I don’t know what year and I can’t lay hands on the map — but still big.

The roster, in order of sighting (but note the * after New York): Massachusetts (surprise, surprise), New Jersey, Vermont, California, New Hampshire, South Carolina, D.C., Connecticut, Maine, Virginia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island (the last New England state I spotted, although after Massachusetts it’s probably the most common), Wisconsin, Indiana, New York*, Oregon, Maryland, Illinois, Texas, Minnesota, Florida, Washington, Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio, Oklahoma, North Dakota (!!).

*I’m 99% positive I spotted New York shortly after Vermont, making it #4, but I forgot to write it down. After Massachusetts, New York might be the most common plate on Martha’s Vineyard, so it’s easy to take for granted.

Longtime license plate fans will note that North Dakota, the holy grail of license-plate spotting, has now shown up three years in a row: in August of 2022, January of 2023, and now January of 2024. They were all spotted in the parking lot of Martha’s Vineyard Hospital (prime hunting ground!), and though I’ve got to double-check the latest sighting, I’m pretty sure they were all the same plate. It seems to belong to a travel nurse or doctor who’s on the Vineyard for several months at a stretch. I took a swing through the hospital parking lot on the last day of the month and was rewarded by Oklahoma as well as North Dakota.

Truth to tell, I made a run to Reliable Market in Oak Bluffs on the last day of the month mainly so I could detour through the hospital parking lot. The groceries I bought could have waited a day or two.