The law of conservation of counties

I subscribe to the law of conservation of counties. It is, of course, only natural that I subscribe to such a law, given that I invented it.

What the law of conservation of counties says is that if you're visiting a county, you should make sure that you aren't cutting off any other counties in the same area without visiting them.

For instance take a look at the Ohio counties visited map of a guy named "bpowell". He spent all that time in Ohio, visiting those counties, and left one on the table. Now, if he ever wants to visit Champaign County, he's going to have to detour out of his way 2-3 hours to get it. He's been in Miami, Darke, Logan, Union, Madison and Clark counties. Surely during one of those adventures he was within 10-15 minutes of Champaign and could have made an appropriate detour.

Now, you could certainly subscribe to the theory that you shouldn't care about counties at all, and that's certainly viable. But, if you're already going to care, then you need to take these things into account.

So when I plan routes, not only do I look for the best routes, but I try to make sure I'm not leaving any of these rogue counties.

In looking at my map, I only have a few of these instances:

• Union and Fayette counties in Eastern Indiana. I have a plan to get those next week.
• Bracken County in N. Kentucky - I will hit that the next time I'm on the good ol' Double-A.
• The southern part of the Delmarva peninsula. If only my dad had realized when we went to Ocean City when I was a kid that I would be orphaning Somerset, Accomack and Northampton counties!!!!! I'm sure he would have made the appropriate detour.
• Madison, Culpeper, and Rappahannock counties in N. Va. Sometimes, I just don't know what's wrong with me...

Anyway, stay tuned for the first installment of my trip - probably being posted Sunday afternoon / evening.