Another reason for my trip to Little Bighorn

I must admit that I had another reason for wanting to go Little Bighorn - my quest to visit all 50 states. That is why I had a fail-safe point on my route. Had I thought I wouldn't make it within 1 hour of closing time, while I would have been bummed out about that, I would have been able to add Montana to my count. I do have some criteria that must be met:

• I have to have some memory of being there. When I was very young, my parents took me on a trip from Tulsa to Yellowstone. I have no memory of this, so any states that we went through do not count on my list.
• Flight connections where you never leave the airport do not count.
• There has to be a legitimate reason for going there, not just to cross the border to say you've been there. This rule is a bit subjective and is open to some interpretation.

To date, here are the states I'm counting:

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, DC (obviously not a state), Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts,Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire (this is one that I had to make a ruling on, but I counted it because to get to Maine from Boston, you have to go through NH and I paid a toll), New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.


So that's 40, plus DC. That leaves me only 10 to go:

Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Ohio, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.


Of these, the ones I really want to get to ASAP are Alaska, Idaho and West Virginia. Obviously some of these can be combined (WA/ID; WV/DE; CT/VT/RI) which leaves the most difficult ones, for me, to be Ohio and ND. I can't think any reason to go to either of these 2 states (with all due respect to Stephanie with regards to ND) and Alaska has it's own set of issues.

So, to help me with my quest, give me some reasons (legitimate ones) to go to Ohio and North Dakota.