What's the best way to experience America? I advise one step at a time. And that's exactly what I set out to do in 2006 when I tried to visit all the fifty_states in fifty days and run a marathon in each of them while staying there.
On a warm day in September, I decided to begin my trip of running fifty marathons, in fifty states, in fifty days with the Lewis & Clark marathon in St. Charles, Missouri. It seemed like a fitting place to begin, because it was the 200th anniversary of the Lewis & Clark expedition (探险)．
After visiting Missouri, my plan was to head west across the country, stopping in each state to visit, explore and run a marathon. As you might imagine, the preparations, including the schedules and research, were every bit as challenging as the running itself. Due to the embarrassing timing of different marathons across the nation, we weren't always able to follow a straight line from one state to the next. Instead, we could only travel across the country in a complex (复杂的) web. But that was what made the travel so interesting.
Besides the complex web of travel, the presence of my family made my trip more meaningful. My wife, a dentist, had changed her schedule to join me, and our two children Alexandria and Nicholas would be taking fifty days off school, so they wanted to travel with us. My mom, a retired school teacher, would also be part of the team. My_father also came along. Well, we're from Greece, where one family member goes, the others are soon follow. All of them supported my expedition.
It might be easy to conclude that seeing the country so quickly would lead to an unclear impression,_ but just the opposite was true. I remember every single state and every detail very clearly, even on this very day, more than a decade later.
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After we made careful preparations, my expedition play began finally.________________________________________________________________________
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