This Couple Drove A Dodge 540,000 Miles to Every County in the Lower 48

There are 3,108 counties in the lower 48 states, and chances are you haven’t been to but a small fraction of them. Two people that have, however, are Jon and Jennifer Riehl, a couple with an appetite for road trips and a love for their forest green 1999 Dodge Intrepid — the car that they drove through their final unvisited county in the continental United States last week, with 540,000 miles on the clock.

Jon, 31, an engineering instructor at Michigan Tech University, bought the car in 2002 for $9,000 when he was a senior in high school. At the time, the Intrepid had done 70,000 miles, and it was his first ever car: “My dad didn’t even think it would get me through college,” Jon tells Yahoo Autos. “Clearly he was wrong.”

Not only have the Riehls visited every county in the lower 48, but they’ve taken a large dent out of Alaska and are planning to ship the Intrepid out to Hawaii to complete the U.S’s full 3,142 counties; their tally currently lies at 3,122, and all of this discounts the 60 to 70 percent of counties they’ve visited in Canada.

Finishing off Alaska and making the trip to Hawaii is sure to be a logistical nightmare, but Jon has been plotting out various cost-effective solutions to make it happen: “I’m into collecting things, and I’m kind of stubborn” he says. “So when I get into something, I need to finish it.”

Jon has always been an “explorer.” From the age of three he had a map in his hand, helping his parents navigate during family trips; Jennifer Riehl, 32, was the same way, so when the couple met in 2005, their collective desire to travel occurred organically.

Today, the Riehl’s explore via those same old-fashioned maps. Many of the roads are off-road – which makes the Intrepid’s reliability even more impressive – and a GPS is only used when they get so lost things might get dangerous.