USA border states with 52 meaningful Loci mnemonics.

I have another thread where I discuss this method but have a lot of changes specified in the other thread. This thread has all the changes incorporated and is thus a much cleaner version and now has its own thread title which makes it easier to find here on the cafe.

This technique uses the USA border states starting with New York City and pretending to drive down the Atlantic coast to Florida and then Westward to California and then up the West Coast to Washington State and then east through the north most states near Canada all the way back to New York State.

There are 52 Loci (usually a city or a famous place or a monument) along this journey (many states will have more than one Loci).

Using 52 meaningful Loci was a method suggested by Divrom. I came up with the idea of using the border states as a guide to assist in our sequential journey through the mnemonics that are provided below.

New York:
1. Empire State Building or One World Trade Center (looks like the number 1).
2. Liberty Island with the Statue of Liberty having two arms.

New Jersey:
3 Atlantic City three-eyed Miss America.

Pennsylvania:
4 Philadelphia Liberty Bell has 4 cracks (not true, pretend).
5 Gettysburg (five major heavy assaults on the Union left flank (Little Round Top, Devil's Den, Wheatfield, Peach Orchard, and Cemetery Ridge).

Delaware:
6 Wilmington (home of Dupont chemical company who developed sexy (six) nylon hosiery). Or you could think of six soldiers getting sick crossing the Delaware during the Revolutionary War.

Maryland:
7 Pimlico horse race track for the Preakness (open seven days a week, not true but pretend).
8 Fort McHenry (the number eight looks like two cannonballs stacked on top of each other).

Washington DC:
9 Capitol building (they are fat cats in the building and cats means nine lives).
10 Washington monument (on a scale of 1 to 10 this monument is at 10).
11 Jefferson memorial (imagine Thomas Jefferson standing in front with two skinny legs that look like the number 11).
12 Lincoln memorial (has 12 columns across the front, this is true).

Virginia:
13 the Pentagon (unlucky to mess with).
14 Colonial Williamsburg (girls got married at 14).

North Carolina:
15 Biltmore Vanderbilt estate. Open to public March 15th last century so think of Julius Caesar being assassinated by Commodore Vanderbilt in the Biltmore mansion on the Ides of March (to mentally lock in the number 15 with Biltmore). Could envision them playing badminton where 15 points wins.

South Carolina:
16 Fort Sumter (if we flip the two digits of 16 we get 61 which is the year 1861 of attack).
17 Fort Jackson basic training (17-year-olds go in for basic military training).

Georgia:
18 Augusta Masters golf tournament (18 holes).

Florida:
19 Disney world (Stephen King's dark Tower 19 can be associated with the Disney World Hollywood Tower of Terror). Twilight Zone Tower of Terror stands at 199 feet tall (true).
20 Cape Canaveral (ingenuity helicopter sent to Mars in the year 2020).

Alabama:
21 Tuscaloosa red tide football (a good three touchdown score).

Mississippi:
22 Vicksburg general Grant gunboats (soldiers equipped with 22 rifles, not true but pretend).

Louisiana:
23 New Orleans Mardi gras has lots of DNA shared kissing (23 pairs of chromosomes).

Texas:
24 Alamo (they had to be alert 24 hours a day also William Travis victory or death letter written on February 24th).
25 Starbase (SpaceX new city named Starbase Incorporated in the year 2025 so imagine Elon Musk standing on a sign that says 25 and he also has the appropriate playing card on his chest.

New Mexico:
26 Carlsbad caverns (you can run a 26 mile marathon inside).
27 White Sands Missile range (27 dresses movie all with white sand on them).

Arizona:
28 Painted desert (visit during February 28).
29 Grand canyon with lots of cliffs to leap from (on leap year February 29th).

California:
30 San Diego Navy port (has 30 ships).
31 Los Angeles Anaheim (Cinderella Castle in Disneyland with the evil step sisters who were 31 years old).
32 San Francisco Golden gate bridge (has about thirty-two vertical steel cables between the spans and there is 32 false chatter teeth trying to bite one of the cables).

Oregon:
33 Portland (Covered wagon (Oregon trail) they listened to 33 RPM records in their wagons).
34 Snow capped Mount Hood (Luke Skywalker's X-34 land speeder is sitting on the very top of the snow capped mountain).

Washington State:
35 Mount St Helens with its side blown off (note that 35 thousand years ago it had lava eruptions, true).
36 Seattle Space Needle (pretend the main metal structure underneath is composed of thousands of metal yard sticks welded together ie: a yardstick is 36 inches).

Idaho:
37 Boise - I think of the number 37 being associated with magicians ("think of a two-digit number from 1 to 50" many will think of 37). The number 37 for Idaho can be enhanced by visualizing Mr Potato Head dressed in a tux and holding a magic wand. Since a magician can be associated with 37 and a potato associated with Idaho we've got a good mnemonic connection of 37 with Boise Idaho.

Montana:
38 Little Bighorn Custer's last stand (he had a 38 caliber pistol which did him no good).

North Dakota:
39 Badlands Tower (Jack Benny with a mop scrubbing off the top). Note that in the major system the word "MoP" is 39 and also a note that the comedian Jack Benny was always 39 years old.

Minnesota:
40 St Paul (pretend Minnesota fats using a forty inch long pool cue stick).
41 Minneapolis 3M Scotch tape (In 1941 they sent Scotch tape to tape up the holes in naval ships that had been torpedoed).

Wisconsin:
42 Green Bay (has giant hunk of big cheese ruling the universe hitchhiker's guide Galaxy 42).
43 Milwaukee giant beer bottle (made from shots of Licor 43 - I never heard of this but it's about the only 43 thing I could find). Well I keg of RuM could also be used because in the Major system RuM is 43.

Michigan:
44 Detroit 4x4 vehicle to travel to Northern Michigan.

Ohio:
45 Toledo Ohio (imagine a big Toledo scale with it's arrow pointing to 45 lbs. Could also think of a heavy person standing on the scale and looking at the scale disagreeing with it and then that person says "you lie" and pulls out a 45 caliber pistol and shoots the scale).

46 Famous Cleveland Hospital: DNA studies (a human double helix has 46 chromosomes ie: 23 pairs times 2 is 46).

New York:
47 Buffalo New York (where Buffalo Bill armed with an AK-47 is shooting buffaloes in his wild west show).

48 Niagara Falls New York (the falls are approximately 48 yards high). John "David" Munday: this Canadian machinist was 48 years old when he went over the falls in a steel barrel, becoming the tenth person to survive. People from the 48 states come to see Niagara Falls.

49 Rochester New York Power Building (where Eastman Kodak and miners 49ers are panning for gold to make gold-plated cameras. Imagine that the Power Building looks like an old-fashioned camera plated with gold). You could also think of the old time black actor who played "Rochester" and a 49er gold panner both standing in front of the Rochester building shaking hands.

50 Syracuse University New York (Carrier Dome holds 50,000 people. True statement).

51 Watertown New York:
Imagine the circle around its fountain being the outline of the landing area of the flying saucer from area 51. See the image in below link:

https://images.app.goo.gl/VBXy6

52 Lake Placid New York (the lake is approximately 52 ft deep, true. Also the American "Miracle on Ice" 1980 Olympic hockey team practiced for 52 weeks, not true but we can pretend).

By using the border states this greatly aids in knowing where to go to next in our journey through the 52 Loci.

I refer to this as Method C in some of my other threads. I do like direct pegging methods a little bit better than this method C, but I do like this method C very much and it could be used to actually temporarily memorize a shuffled deck and this method C gives you positional information as well as sequential information.
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Note that the popular PAO with 17 Loci gives you sequential information but is very poor at giving you positional information about a stack.

I love the PAO part (Person or Action or Object as an alias name for a playing card) and use it all the time, but it's the 17 Loci that I dislike for use to memorize a mem deck because the 17 Loci is limiting because it does NOT allow a magician to easily and quickly know the position number of every card.

Long ago others have recognized the benefit of using a full 52 Loci. I really like Divrom's suggestion to also make each of the 52 Loci meaningful. Divrom's example: a diving board to be the Loci for the position 29 because February 29th is in a leap year and you leap from a diving board.
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Nice method, thank you for sharing it!
I would probably have to adapt it to use Europe borders (or France borders, but it may not provide enough diversity for 52 Loci) but the concept is interesting.