Galvin crop

This week’s poll at rv-times.com presented those inclined to answer online polls with an intimidating challenge — it asked them to do math.

Addition, mostly, while we counted how many states that we could properly claim as having visited. Some subtraction was required as well — should you want to include a stop for gas in, say, Wisconsin, but were outvoted by the other members of your household.

Yes, in our case, the cat was the deciding vote.

I came up with 27 states that we had visited together in our 46 years together. (My total would be 28, since she was not on my trip to Colorado.) She, meanwhile, had come up with 31; 32 for her alone, as I had not gone with her to West Virginia.

Eventually, this dispute required putting our heads, hands and feet together, look over a map that was somehow missing three of the 53 states, and begin our figgerin’.

But enough of that … does it really matter who had miscounted, as long as the correct answer was determined?

What actually did matter was that this little sidetrack had afforded us the chance to think back on the many adventures we had shared in visiting those 31 states.

Some were over in moments — such as stopping in a rest area on a 28-hour drive from Florida to Massachusetts and wondering aloud “Where the hell are we?”

It turned out to be Delaware.

Others lasted forever, as when leaving Kimball, Nebraska, in early October and asking the hotel clerk how the weather was along I-80 — only to find out he thought we were driving east, whereas we were about to encounter a whiteout as we went west to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

If we survived, we’d have a good story. If not, we’d never have to go to Kimball, Nebraska, again. That’s what you call right there a win-win situation.

Another place we’ll never go again? Mitchell, South Dakota, home to a pair of unique experiences — The World’s Only Corn Palace, and the worst cup of coffee either of us has had in the contiguous 48, Alaska, Hawaii, the other three states, in an airplane, on a cruise ship, or when abducted by aliens.

Those of you who like to say “never say never” have never paid far too much trying to assuage your caffeine craving in Mitchell, South Dakota, while glancing at the corn-art exterior of a 43,510-square-foot multipurpose arena.

The coffee was cheaper and far more palatable — meaning, most of it didn’t wind up at the bottom of a trash can — 222 miles away at the other end of the state at the 76,000-square-foot traveler’s wonderland known as Wall Drug … where they also pump and dump pancakes via a human conveyor belt contraption that would make Rube Goldberg envious.

We were destined for such adventures from the start, having spent our honeymoon in Winooski, Vermont, watching the World Series on a French-Canadian station and visiting the nephew who had been born on our wedding day.

We’ve been stuck bumper-to-bumper on the Tappen Zee Bridge across the Hudson River on a mid-summer Sunday night as Yankee fans flocked back to New York City, the air conditioning failed, and we began shedding sweat, tears and clothing while praying to get across.

We’ve encountered a traffic nightmare outside Chicago, where eight lanes of traffic became three on the other side of a toll booth, directional signs swirled before me like the opening credits of The Twilight Zone — only to look over and see my would-be helper with her eyes closed shut, and the cat in her lap having buried his head in her chest.

Which really ticked me off … because it was his turn to drive.

So, 31 states it is and, if time and space permitted, a story or two from each of them. Except of course for Florida, of which I will borrow from W.C. Fields and suggest that on the whole, I’d rather be in Mitchell, South Dakota.