For me, the real "flyover country" is not places like Nebraska or Wyoming, but rather Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, as I have come within 7 miles of each of those provinces, but have never been on the ground in any of them. Come September 5, I am remedying that. I've taking 9 days to travel from St. John's NL to Cleveland OH by surface transportation.

I fly to YYT on September 5 and will stay there two nights. On September 7, I am setting out for Cleveland, taking the 13+ hour DRL bus ride to Port au Basques. I am booked on the overnight Marine Atlantic ferry to North Sydney, NS; upon arriving there I am taking the 0835 Maritime Bus service to Halifax. I'm just going to spend one night there, and then take a bus at noon on Saturday 9/9 to Charlottetown. I'm going to spend 4 days on PEI, and then on Wednesday 9/13 I'm going to bus down to Amherst NS to meet up with VIA Rail's Ocean train (I have a sleeper cabin booked). This train only runs 3 days per week. At Montreal, I'm booked to connect with Amtrak's Adirondack train, alighting at Schenectady, NY, where I have a scheduled 56 minute layover to connect to the Amtrak Lake Shore Limited, which reaches Cleveland at about 0353 on Friday 9/15.

Interestingly, were I to stay on the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago (where it terminates), one more train connection would get me to either Los Angeles or the San Francisco Bay Area, or either Seattle or Portland (one train, the Empire Builder, splits at Spokane and serves both big cities in the PNW).

When I get to PEI I will have visited all 50 US states and 10 Canadian provinces plus Yukon.

I can't wait.