#1 - Maryland

My birthday.

I'm totally not putting that out here for total strangers to see, but let's just say it was in 1987. Maryland is the wonderful place that I was lucky to be born in, grow up in, go to college in, and currently live in. It has some drawbacks to it, but overall I can't imagine spending my life anywhere else. There's mountains in the west, the ocean in the east, and cities, suburbs, and farms in between. We theoretically get all four seasons although most years the seasons are out of order and/or at least one is abbreviated. You can drive from where I live in MD all the way down to the end of Florida on Route 95 and not pay one toll. Unfortunately, to even go through the city of Baltimore which is just north of me, you have to pay a toll and many thereafter to head north. Thank goodness for the invention of the EZPass.

Maryland is right next to the beautiful Washington, DC. There are so many things to do there, but more on that later when I talk about my first visit to it.

I am beyond blessed to live in this area. It's one of the most prosperous in the nation and while that can prove quite entertaining and frustrating, it has also allowed me to have many opportunities that I would have never had if I grew up somewhere else. I will go ahead and say that we are some of the worst drivers. I'm sorry if I've offended my fellow Marylanders, but seriously? We slam on the brakes in the pouring down rain, we basically come to a stop just to look at an accident scene, we fly up the right lane next to a merge just because the lane was open, and signals are optional. I will say though that most of us can properly use a traffic circle.

In keeping with the topic of ridiculous things we like to do in our state, I have to talk about when the cold weather hits here. This is especially relevant because of the crazy storm that they're predicting might take place this weekend into next week. The weathermen are usually incredibly wrong with their predictions of how much or lack there of snow we're going to get which has caused this paranoia in all of us. If we're told there's a 0.00000001% chance that ONE flake of snow is going to fall from the sky, we flock to the nearest place that sells food and stock up as if we have to feed the entire state for a year off of only the supplies in our house. There have only been a few horrendous snow storms that I can remember and even then, we only needed supplies for a few days before we were able to make it to the grocery store.

I'm sorry I don't really have any pictures for this visit, but my whole life involves this state so in reality that would be a lot of pictures to look through. It will take a lot for me to move from this area. I love visiting other places in this great nation, but Maryland will forever and always be my home. It's where my heart will always be and I wouldn't have it any other way.