2nd Anniversary of the All 50 Road Trip!
Reminiscing, a New Road Trip in Mind — and a Tattoo
April 25, 2005 — exactly two years to the day since Ray picked up the Z06 at the National Corvette Museum and the road trip began.
Two years. April 25, 2003 to April 25, 2005. Ray marked the second anniversary of the ALL50 road trip the way it deserved to be marked: by making it permanent.
He got the All 50 logo tattooed on his arm.
It's a fitting tribute to a journey that had already left its mark in every other way — on Ray's odometer (22,796 miles), on his sense of what was possible, and on the thousands of people who had followed along online as he drove a brand-new Corvette to all 50 states in 63 days.
The tattoo wasn't an impulse. Ray had been thinking about it since the trip ended, and the second anniversary felt like the right moment. The logo — the same one that had appeared on the website, on the car, on the commemorative brick at the National Corvette Museum — was now part of him.
He was also thinking about the road again. A new summer road trip was taking shape in his mind. The ALL50 Z06 was ready. The question was where.
Photos from the Day
The Road Calls Again
Two years of post-trip life hadn't dulled Ray's appetite for the open road. If anything, the anniversary reminded him of what the trip had felt like — the freedom, the daily discoveries, the sense of purpose that comes from having a destination and a deadline.
The new trip never materialized in quite the same way as ALL50, but the contemplation of it was itself a kind of tribute: proof that the original journey had been worth every mile.