Most pathetic state clinches

[Roadrunner75]

Awhile back I picked up Ohio as a short diversion on a Pittsburgh trip.  I promised my wife it would be quick (she knows better), and we zipped down 22 through WV and across the bridge into Steubenville.  Making it legit, we ate at a Mexican restaurant (why else would one go to Ohio?), stopped at an Ollie's and then turned back around.  I made sure to drive this bridge: https://maps.google.com/maps/myplaces?ll=40.357353,-80.606105&spn=0.000002,0.001635&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=40.357353,-80.606361&panoid=7bJg6k4CmnV4x099ZnprkA&cbp=12,301.83,,0,-0.79.

For short layovers on flights, I spent time in Illinois running from one gate to another at Chicago Midway, although I don't really count it.

[bulldog1979]

Oh, and airport layovers absolutely do not count unless you leave the premises of the airport while on the ground.

Who made you definer of 'clinch'? Who made you able to remove airports from states?

I have a stamp on an old passport saying 'DTW' - if I entered the US there, surely I entered Michigan as well? Yes it's pathetic, and many people wouldn't count it, but it seems to me that I was in Wayne County, MI to all intents and purposes, even if on the outward journey I didn't step outside.

While I stepped outside (oddly didn't get a high-spec gate), when internationally transiting via Bangkok the first time, I had a sticker saying that I wasn't in transit and didn't enter Thailand then. I wouldn't count that, but would the second time, when I took an internal flight from the airport, so entered the country - despite not going outside.

By my way of thinking, you were in Michigan. If you had dropped dead at that time, your death certificate would have issued by Wayne County. That's my basis.

[DandyDan]

My first ever trip into Iowa was to visit the MN-IA-SD tripoint when I was a kid.  This served as my only visit to Iowa for 3 years, despite the fact my mother had 3 siblings who lived in the strip of Minnesota between I-90 and Iowa (and one of those had two different residences).  I also remember 3 different visits to Ellsworth, MN as a kid, but never went south on MN 91 the one mile to Iowa.  Eventually, we made the trip to Rock Rapids, IA, which is at least more substantial.  It's odd now, because I have since visited 91 of Iowa's 99 counties, but that's my start on Iowa.

My first trip to Missouri was over the Brownville Bridge (US 136) and then north on I-29.  I did stop at the 66 station/truck stop.

My only trip to Tennessee was to visit a friend of mine who then lived in Clarksville, working at Fort Campbell.   I may be the only person whose sole Tennessee experience is Clarksville.

As for other people I know, I know one guy at work whose sole experience with Michigan was to exit at the Notre Dame exit on I-80/90, turn north til he went into Michigan, then turn around.

[Dr Frankenstein]

For a while, the only place I had been to in Michigan was Port Huron (by way of the Sarnia/Port Huron road meet). Then I added Detroit. The year after was the first year that I crossed a city line in that state.

My girlfriend's initial clinch of New York (and also the United States) was entirely on the St. Lawrence River. We couldn't land even if we wanted to, as she didn't have a passport or EDL.

[Bickendan]

Amtrak from NYC to Vermont, clipping an insignificant portion of New Hampshire.
Kansas -- from the Alphabet Loop to Overland via I-35, then cut back to MO.
I wonder if there's someone whose clinch of Texas rests solely on US 71.

[wphiii]

Oh, and airport layovers absolutely do not count unless you leave the premises of the airport while on the ground.

Who made you definer of 'clinch'?

You are, of course, welcome to use an entirely different set of standards, as is the beauty of our existence, but my feeling is that an airport is effectively a sensory vacuum. It is largely devoid of the sights, smells, sounds, and people that make a place a place. You're still far more able to actually experience a place even by crossing 100 feet over an arbitrary line at ground level than you are by by passing through a hermetically sealed bubble that happens to be located somewhere. I mean, do you consider flying over a country as having clinched it? For all intents and purposes, airports are effectively an extension of the airplane, to me.

The test I try to use is asking whether I would tell someone "I have been to [given place]." For instance, if someone asked me "have you ever been to Michigan?" and my only response could be "Yeah! I spent a great hour and a half at the Starbucks in Terminal C at DTW!" ....I don't know, maybe that sounds a lot better to you than it does to me.

[Pete from Boston]

I've known folks to travel places for business where they barely leave a hotel/conference center/office park, "largely devoid of the sights, smells, sounds, and people that make a place a place."  The same can be said for many an "all-inclusive resort."

All this stuff is subjective, and ultimately so meaningless that there is no reason to dicker over what someone considers sufficient.

My standard, FWIW, is that if you've been there, you've been there.  Anything beyond that seems silly.

[Zzonkmiles]

When I lived in Germany, I drove on Autobahn 6 to Saarbrucken (right on the French border) and got off on a local road that went through a residential area. The road had a traffic circle that was half in France and half in Germany. So I drove all the way around the traffic circle so I could say I was "in France" before getting out of the circle the same way I drove into it. Then I went home.

[SSOWorld]

Pathetic clinches?
Now?
Landed in Oregon at Portland, never left the Portland area, but I did leave the airport and cross over into Washington.
Maine is close with 2 counties in 2010, but i did make it to the Falmouth spur.
North Dakota - no further in than I-29 and didn't have anything more than Fargo to start with.

Past?
* New Mexico - the 4 corners only - subverted in 2013 by a county in the southwest corner and later a paint=stripe of I-40 through the state.
* Deleware - only circled Wilmington - expanded in 2014 to clinch the other two counties and remainng Interstate mileage.
* I don't consider I-90 only in ID pathetic.
* Nevada - Clark County only in 1997 - expanded in 2009 to include Washoe and County and Carson City and later added the Kingdom of NYE in 2013.
* Maryland - one county off of the Capitol Beltway.  Later added the panhndle (2009) and those bordering DE (2014)

*Pathetic non-clinch?: Well had the chance to but didn't go Vermonting.

[Scott5114]

The most pathetic county clinch is the roughly 1/2 mile of I-71 in Trimble County, Kentucky.

My most pathetic county clinch was witnessed by (and participated in with) Jake Bear. We were attempting to hit as many western North Texas counties as possible, so he had a fairly efficient route plotted that would allow us to do that. The route took us down an FM just east of the Stonewall—Haskell county line, with the idea being that we could turn west along a county road or a driveway and thus cross the plane of the county line. Unfortunately, we could not find such a road before the FM curved away from the line. We stopped, and, reckoning from the map that the county line ran along the edge of the ROW, walked over to the fence and waved our hands beyond it, so at least our hands could be in Stonewall County.

I still have that marked as 'questionably clinched' on my map because I have no way of knowing for sure if that fence was actually the line or not, and even if it was, my head never entered the county. I think Jake has returned and definitively clinched it since then.

[bugo]

When I lived in Germany, I drove on Autobahn 6 to Saarbrucken (right on the French border) and got off on a local road that went through a residential area. The road had a traffic circle that was half in France and half in Germany. So I drove all the way around the traffic circle so I could say I was "in France" before getting out of the circle the same way I drove into it. Then I went home.

How did this work before Schengen ?

[Mdcastle]

Stopped at the Mason Dixon marker at Delaware's Southwest corner. Got out of the car an walked around it.

[Sykotyk]

My rule of thumb was: if you're counting countries, airport layovers won't count if you don't pass through customs. For states/counties, an airport layover in the U.S. most certainly would count.

Besides, I've done many out-and-back trips to clinch counties or states. In my 48-state trip around the country I entered Iowa via a dirt road for just a few hundred feet before turning around. I couldn't even guess at how many counties I initially clinched just by passing a few yards to a few miles past the sign/line and then turning back.

Since I've been to all 48 states now extensively, there isn't one state that I've been in 'only a little'. Even North Dakota, a state I've rarely been in, included a trip as a kid through I-29 to Grand Forks to US2 west and then north to International Peace Gardens, as well as several trips across I-94 and twice I took US12, once turning south at Bowman, ND and the other going east on 12 until reaching Mobridge, SD and continued further east.

Next year, I'm planning to finish clinching Montana as well as the northern counties of North Dakota that I've missed, as well as northern MN, WI, and the U.P. of Michigan.

[CentralPAGal]

Colorado... at the Four Corners Monument

[Roadster]

For me so far it's been 5 states crossed in one day. Started in Texas, cross over in through Louisiana, passed through Mississippi then on through Alabama then ending up in Florida.

Oh and by the way the drive was terrible, just terrible and nasty, did it once and only once and will definitely not ever do that drive again, ever!

[SSOWorld]

I just realized - a pathetic clinch i might have is Sonora, Mexico - entered on Mex 2D to San Luis Rio Colorado, then exit at the US-95 Border Crossing

[MikeTheActuary]

I have a meeting in Minneapolis a week from Monday.  I'm actually flying out there on Saturday, so that I can "play" on Sunday.

One of the possibilities for such "play":  running over to visit White Rock, SD, and maybe venture just a smidgen north, to finally be able to say that I've set foot in the Dakotas.

[iowahighways]

The first time I was in Kansas was for a grand total of less than a minute during a family vacation to the Kansas City area in 1987. My dad turned around at the I-435/State Line Road interchange. My next trip to the Sunflower State was not until the Topeka roadgeek meet of 2003.

So far, my only times in Georgia and Michigan were airport layovers in ATL and DTW respectively. But I have purchased items in both airports.

[mefailenglish]

My saddest clinch was taking a taxi from Eppley Airfield to downtown Omaha, clipping Iowa by passing through Carter Lake.  (I've since made a few more treks through the state.)

[JCinSummerfield]

Maryland - I crossed from WV to PA via one of the skinniest parts.
Alabama - Went to see my son's boot camp graduation in GA, and crossed the river to go out for dinner.

[Scott5114]

My rule of thumb was: if you're counting countries, airport layovers won't count if you don't pass through customs. For states/counties, an airport layover in the U.S. most certainly would count.

Would that mean you could theoretically clinch a state/county without clinching the country it's in?

[signalman]

Georgia: I've only ever passed through on I-95
Montana: I've only been to Big Horn County to visit the Little Bighorn Battlefield
Nevada: I've only been to Las Vegas (Clark County)
Louisiana: I've only been to New Orleans, but managed to pick up Orleans and Jefferson Parishes due to the airport being in Jefferson Parish

[MarkF]

Alabama: took I-20 from Atlanta and turned around at the first exit (there was a big, but closed, fireworks store there)
Oklahoma: same thing - took US 75 from Dallas and turned around at the first exit

[intelati49]

Michigan - DTW

Minnesota - MSP

Both for the same trip to China actually

[sammi]

I-94 in Indiana.