Girlchild is on her way back from New Orleans. She drove with a friend. It's 639 miles (1,028 kilometers) from Orlando to New Orleans, or what we consider an easy drive in this family. I just thought I'd share that for the amusement of readers in other countries (I know you are out there, and bless you). It's just one of those times when you realize that this is a damn big country, and some states are really sprawling, and this is one of them. She crossed into FL hours ago, and she's still hours from home. She sent me a text message from a rest stop on I-10, cursing the length of I-10. Yes, it is long. Very, very long. And dark. Very dark. And there are few places to pee. Then you get to I-75 and feel like you're almost home, and then it's a long drive to the Florida Turnpike, which totally feels like you're almost home, and then you're still about an hour and a half away from Orlando.
Just thought I'd share that for the benefit/amusement for those who could drive 1000 kilometers and cross the borders of at least two countries. To us 'Murricans, that ain't but a dang weekend trip! She didn't even begin to get out of the South, or even to the other side of it!
we drove from omaha, ne to just southwest of savannah, ga at christmas time, and the first half of the trip was all the way to murfreesboro, tn, south of nashville. that was about 700 miles. while i didn't mind the drive so much, the MEN in the group (my husband and sons, lol) said it was too long, and next time we're to divide the trip equally in half. poo. that means no more santa fe cattle company!
ReplyDeleteanyway, i know how you feel. i felt like i was damned near home when we hit kansas city, and it was another 3 hours!
Well, we live in the south of Sweden. Tomorrow my husband and my kids will leave for a skiing holiday in Italy. They'll pass Denmark, Germany, Austria and Switzerland driving there. It's actually more than 1000 kilometers (something like 1600) but still... I think we can go from here and pass the borders to Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and finally France in those 1000 kilometers. I'll have to check that. (Oh, I forgot Luxemburg,not a large country, but still there)
ReplyDeleteYeah, when my daughter sent me the text from I-10, my answer was something along those lines - the stretch of 10 she's on is about as wide as New England. Back in the day, my husband worked for a high tech company whose US HQ was in Natick. He would get calls in the middle of the night asking him to just "pop over" and see what was up with a site in Miami. 5 hours away. "But it's in Florida!" :-)
ReplyDeleteI spent a semester when I was in college at the University of Manchester in the U.K. I needed to go down to London to the Pan Am (showing my age...) office to change my return flight and went to the train station to buy a round-trip ticket. The woman selling me the ticket was incredulous that I could possibly think that I go down and back in one day. It's 265 km (164 miles). Far is a very different concept to Americans and Europeans.
ReplyDelete164 miles on a train sounds restful to me! All that quality knitting/reading time. Of course, if the route had a lot of stops it could be a long trip in hours, but still not that bad. It really is a matter of perspective, and if you live in a compact area, the sprawl of the U.S. is startling.
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