greggarious

Haha, nice.

I once drove from the Midwest to SF for an internship in Mountain View. (Wanted a car in South Bay + it actually worked out that I made a small profit based on their per mile reimbursement since my car got good highway mileage)

Ended up growing that small profit a bit in Vegas too

The first day at lunch my supervisor and collaborators (all European) are making conversation and ask how the flight was, and I said that I drove and in unison their eyes bugged out and were like "YOU DROVE?".

"How long did it take you?" they asked and I'm like "oh about 3 days" and they all yell out "THREE DAYS?" and I'm like well, I stopped to sleep each night.

After I mentioned the Vegas leg I had a bit of a reputation as a rebel, heh.

(In actuality it didn't add much time to stop in Vegas, and hotels were cheap midweek - got a room at the Flamingo for like $35)

Anyways the rest of the summer they'd introduce me to other research scientists as "the intern who drove here" and everyone would be like "Wow!"

mglvrug

The old line is that Europeans think 100 miles is a long way, while Americans think 100 years is a long time.

luv2ctheworld

Funny you mention that... back when I was planning our honeymoon to Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Cairns), the SO made a request to visit friends who lived down under. I had already given up on going to Ayers Rock/Uluru due to the geographic remoteness.

She indicated that she had already committed to them we'd visit, and that it should be a quick detour/visit from a relatively packed itinerary. Given that we were not planning on renting a car, I responded warily that we couldn't get around easily. Not a problem she said, we can probably take a bus or a train there; maybe should take 2 or 3 hours or so, and her friend could meet and drive us around.

I then asked where specifically they were located... and her response, "some town called Perth."

It took me a few seconds to gather my thoughts and wits and hold back from outright cursing... I quietly pulled up Google Maps and showed her where Perth was in relation to Sydney... basically a flight from LA to NY... and for good measure, reminded her that Australia was a continent

pinniped

I've driven the entire length of I-70 at one point or another in my life.

The Western end is so much more pleasant than the Eastern end.

jrl767

ditto for I-80 and I-90

we covered most of US 2 this summer (from Sault Ste Marie to the Seattle area), with the exception of I-94 between Moorhead MN and Bismarck ND ... overnight stops in Superior WI, Jamestown ND, Fort Peck MT, St Mary MT (2 nights; made a clockwise loop starting on US 2 one day and departed via Going To The Sun highway westbound the next), and Spokane WA

greggarious

Yeah, Colorado was cool looking, and the Salt Flats are super interesting.

Kansas, Indiana are boring as hell (and also have overzealous cops, prob cause everyone's in a rush to get out )

pinniped

My take on I-70:

- Utah - great
- Colorado - great
- Kansas - long, a bit boring, but a good road and a few interesting towns to stop if you know where to look. I lived in Denver, so I've done it a few times and it's grown on me a bit.
- Missouri - terrible road, bad traffic, and how the hell do all of those adult bookstores in rural Missouri stay in business in 2017? Haven't people heard of "the Internet"?
- Illinois - better road, uneventful
- Indiana - the Man is *everywhere*, ready to bust anyone with out-of-state tags, best to stick with the traffic flow here.
- Ohio - never seen so many 18-wheelers in one state, terrible traffic
- West Virginia - you're only there for 5 minutes, so you'll be lucky if you see more than one burning couch
- Pennsylvania - another terrible road, potholes, lots of trucks, and lots of cops.
- Maryland - before long, it turns into 270 and you're in DC traffic


Basically, west of KC I like it. East of KC I don't. I-80 and I-90 look like fun roadtrips but I haven't had to go as far on those. Black Hills, basically... Crossing South Dakota provides a surprising number of interesting stops.

LAX2Anywhere

Hmmm ... all the references I've found put Las Vegas at a longitude of about 115 W and Los Angeles at 118W, putting Los Angeles west of Las Vegas at a heading of about 50 degrees.

Kamalaasaa

I was surprised to learn that the driving distance from the Atlantic Ocean at Virginia Beach to the Cumberland Gap (SW corner of Virginia) is more than 500 miles. I thought it was more like 300-350.

Something that always amuses me, as a native of Florida, is how much people underestimate that state’s total length. From Pensacola to Miami is 650 miles of driving, and to Key West it’s 800 miles or more.

To put that in perspective, it doesn’t take much longer to drive from Pensacola to Brownsville, TX (on the Mexican border near the SE tip of Texas), than it does to drive from Pensacola to Key West. According to some mapping programs the difference is a matter of only a few minutes! (Brownsville is about 50 miles farther by the fastest route but the average speed limit is higher.)

darthbimmer

I've observed there's a cultural difference between the US and the UK about distance. In the US a lot of people consider it nothing to take a weekend roadtrip 100-200 miles each way, or more. It doesn't require lots of planning, maybe call ahead for a hotel, other than that just hop in the car and go. In the UK a lot of people I've talked to consider going 30 miles away a big trip. In the US for a lot of people that's called commuting to work.

Loren Pechtel

You head west out of the US to get to the far east.

roberino

Because it isn’t 2.5 hours of freeway cruising. It is 2.5 hours of varying traffic, people changing lanes, densely packed trucks in the inside lane, and so on...

Finkface

Years ago, about 3 years after we moved to Vancouver from Italy, there was a devastating ice storm in Montreal. It caused billions in damage, millions were left in the dark for periods varying from days to several weeks, and in some instances, months and there were many fatalities.

Mr. Fink's 91 year old mother, who has never been farther than the next small town from hers on the Italian riviera, called us in a panic because she had heard about this terrible storm in Canada and was sure we were caught up in it. We tried to explain to her that it was thousands of kilometers away from us and to think of it like if there was an ice storm in Moscow or Tehran. She just could not comprehend the size and distances in Canada.

VivoPerLei

Come to think of it, isn't that bit of trivia actually about Reno? I remember reading it in the 70's.

pinniped

Another mildly interesting driving-related anecdote: whenever I'm in India, I'm always in awe of the traffic. I was visiting our office in Hyderabad a couple weeks ago and talking to the guys there about traffic, how/where they learned how to drive, when they got their first moped, etc. To them, the chaotic traffic was completely normal and just something they instinctively knew how to do by being in it their whole lives.

Then they told me they find U.S. traffic scary for a different reason: when they fly into Kansas City to visit us, they get into a taxi and are soon on a wide open highway driving 75 MPH. For some of them, this is faster than they've ever gone in a car. Even though Hyderabad has a few modern highways, traffic tends to move 40-45 MPH or less. The open spaces, lack of people, and high speeds here were rather disorienting to them.