In Search of Rhode Island

Back in January 2016, I got this idea to look for license plates. Why?

 Because I was busy revisiting my 10-year-old self.  Why?

Because I had just retired, and was looking for fun things to do with all that spare time.

I had plenty of big things to do, such as More Art and More Birding and More Time with Dogs.

But I also wanted to find some smaller, fun things to do just for the heck of it.

So I thought, "Retirement is like being a kid again -- what did I enjoy doing when I was a kid?"

One thing I remembered was looking for license plates while on road trips -- plates from as many different states as we could find.

I wasn't planning any road trips for a while, but I could keep an eye out locally -- so I did. 

 I decided to see if I could spot every state's license plate within the state of Washington.

AND, I had to get a photo of it.  Challenging! 

The ones west of the Rockies were easy, naturally, but then things slowed down as I hunted for ones farther afield.

Luckily, lots of people from all over the place enjoyed driving to Seattle.

The hardest ones to find were from the south and from New England.

But over the next year or two, I got more and more of them, and the search got increasingly difficult.

Mostly I just kept an eye out while out doing other things, but sometimes I made deliberate trips to search, such as the Woodland Zoo parking lots, or the UW campus, or hotels. 

Fortunately, I did not get stopped and questioned about being a potential car prowler. 

That's Mississippi above.  It's name is covered up by the holder, but there's a legend reading "Birthplace of America's Music" that only MS plates bear.

By 2017, I was able to identify specific state plates at a glance from a distance quite easily.

And by the end of 2017, I had all but one.  I had a picture of every state plate but one, and even had one from the District of Columbia, and my quest was nearly complete.

Which state eluded me?  Not Hawaii -- I found that one in my own neighborhood.  Not Maine -- I saw two from that far-away state.

No, the pesky state that I still hadn't found after two years of keeping an eye out was Rhode Island.

Rhode Island is, of course, a very small state. The smallest of the small.  And apparently people in Rhode Island rarely took it into their heads to hop in a car and drive all the way across the country to Washington.

I kept it in the back of my mind during all of 2018, but finding Rhode Island was a faint hope.  Then in August 2018 I moved to Richland, where there were a whole lot fewer out-of-state license plates.

One week after I moved, a friend in Shoreline (just north of Seattle) reported seeing a car with a Rhode Island plate right in her own neighborhood.  ARGH!!!!

2019 rolled around.  I did not see Rhode Island.  And then in July I made a return visit to the Puget Sound area, staying in a rental in Shoreline.

I spent a month in the area, and hope flickered brighter.  Everywhere I went (the zoo!  the UW campus!) I kept an eye out for that elusive plate.

I was especially vigilant when in the Shoreline area, and its next-door neighbor, Lake Forest Park.

I wondered if the car my friend had seen belonged to someone merely visiting, or someone who had moved there, and if the latter, had not gotten around yet to changing their plates.

All the month long, I searched for Rhode Island.  I knew what the most common version looked like, typically blue and white with a stylized wave -- the Ocean State.

And always I was disappointed.  Would my absurd quest never be completed?  Should I give up?

Ah, but then one fateful day, during the final week of my stay, a friend asked if I wanted to go to the Lake Forest Park town center -- an impromptu, unplanned outing.

Usually I say "no" to unplanned outings, but this time something told me to say  "yes."  So off we went.

We got to the town center.  We parked.  I got out of the car and glanced at the cars in the next row, looking for the best path through them to the shopping center entrance.  And as I glanced at the cars, my view fell upon a blue and white license plate with a stylized wave, and suddenly I knew that my quest was over.  Eureka! I cried.

My friend, who did not know of my quest, was bemused as I grabbed my phone and carefully, oh so carefully, snapped the photo.  DONE!  At long last, the completely ridiculous, utterly silly, and totally pointless quest was DONE!!!

WHEW!

Well, that was that, and even in my extreme elation at finding Rhode Island, I felt a twang of regret.  Now what did I do with all my spare time?

I mean, yes, there is still Art, and there are Birds, and there are Dogs, and lots of other things, but now I will never get excited at the sight of a hotel parking lot again.  Dang.

Unless, of course, I decide to start all over again from scratch....

...or look for ones from other countries....

Maybe the quest has just begun!