LastClass

There's at least one pair other than MO/KY that has nothing to do with the Four Corners. Every time I ask this question people try to think of technicalities (they also want to name Illinois and Michigan, hence the "no Great Lakes" proviso), but the answers I have in mind should pass any common-sense definition of "border".

m-w.com says "moron" comes from the Greek word "moros", meaning foolish. My From: line refers to an unintentionally funny thread in OMNI a couple weeks back. I was going to change it soon, but I'm flattered enough by your compliment to keep it for a while longer.

Mehdron

Well, I was thinking of something even shorter, such as where two interstates join together when going through a downtown area. Doing a little looking around:

I-10/45 for less than a mile in Houston

I-35W/94 for less than a mile in Minneapolis

I-35/70 along the north leg of the loop in downtown Kansas City for just about a mile.

I-5/10 for a little over a mile in downtown L.A.

I-70/71 for a couple of miles in Columbus

I-15/80 for a couple of miles in Salt Lake City

Several more at 3-4 miles. Anything else 2 miles or less I didn't find?

Shortest combo of a 2 and a 3 digit interstate appears to be I-40/I-240 in Memphis for ~3 miles.

For a three-interstate designation, I bet this wins:

I-64, I-70 and I-55 crossing the Mississippi together from St. Louis and E. St. Louis are coincident for about 3 miles.


[This message has been edited by Mehdron (edited 07-30-2003).]

swag

Still stumped, but thinking out loud here. The "paved" road hints that the 2 states are connected by an unpaved road. Since bridges aren't usually made of dirt, this seems to rule out a river-only boundary. States connected by only a dirt road suggests either a very rural area (west?) or perhaops a protected area (maybe an island?).

The short borders out West (OK-NM, OK-CO) seem to have roads across them. Are there unconnected states that might share an island - maybe a piece of Block Island RI that's NY; or maybe an island in Superior shared by MN & MI?

Am I on the right track?

LastClass

You were getting warmer, and warmer... and then you cooled way off.

LIH Prem

Yes, our destination for that night (and the next two) was the W NOLA.

We hit another accident on one of the bridges on the way into New Orleans on I-10, but other than that one, it wasn't that bad. It was nothing compared to the traffic through Baton Rouge.

-David


-David

LIH Prem

Yes, we backtracked to Santa Fe, and took US-285 to I-40. I changed the route a bit since my daughter got a bit carsick the day before on the end of the enchanted circle drive (the real curvy part .. we did it clockwise).

swag

SD - MT ?

Canarsie

That has to be the other correct answer, as that answer hit me like a ton of bricks last night. I should have thought of that answer, as I was trying to get to Montana after visiting the Geographical Center of the United States in South Dakota a few years ago (please see the second post in The FlyerTalk Travel Trivia Forum), which is located just west of U.S. 85.

The reason I was trying to get to Montana is because the only two states I have not been to yet are Montana and Idaho. I remember that there was no easy way to get to Montana from South Dakota, and I did not have enough time to take some back road to cross the border.

I could kick myself for not getting this answer sooner. This should have immediately been my first answer!

Mr. July

Add I-65/I-70 in Indianapolis - about 2 miles. This was completely closed and rebuilt this summer, so it may also be the newest (at least in one sense)

LastClass

Yep, the only other answer is SD/MT. There are unpaved roads between these two states, but no paved roads.

Kubla

What's the longest road trip you've taken in the shortest time? For example, I once drove from Ithaca, NY to Chicago on a Saturday, watched a White Sox game that night, then drove back to Ithaca on Sunday - about 1200 miles in 36 hours.

What's the Flyertalk record?

JS

How do you define longest & shortest together?

I'll suggest maximizing the product of average speed (total distance traveled divided by total hours elapsed during the trip) and distance traveled.

In other words, miles^2 divided by elapsed time.

For me, that would be my house to Fayetteville, NC and back the same day to see an air show at Pope AFB. 540 miles roundtrip in 18 hours total. 540^2/18 is 16,000 (round to the nearest 000).

Your 36 hour trip beats mine easily. Ithaca to Chicago is 1,360 miles roundtrip. 1360^2/36 is 51,000.

swag

I did my home in Dallas to Canmore, Alberta (near banff) in 55 hours. 2100 miles gives a JS quotient of 80182.

That was just me and my dog. I think we should categorize team and solo trips separately.

GG

Try Paris KY to San Diego in 2 days... 2225 miles/44 hours (basically 2 18hr days plus 8 hours sleep time). That was Lex by himself. The next day we flew to AMS. When we got back to SD, we drove about 20 miles and the water pump broke - still gives me shudders. I think that's 112,514 if I'm doing the arithmetic right.

Our worst trip together was Paris to Winnepeg - via Detroit, Windsor, Toronto, North Bay, to the TransCanada highway, with no stops except for gas, peeing, grabbing food etc. About 1850 miles. 10 hrs to Toronto, and about 24 more to WPG. That seems to be 100,661.

We still have the Voyager minivan that made both those trips (and a lot more). It had 448,8?? miles on it day before yesterday - question marks are because I looked then (thinking of bragging on it here in fact), but didn't check it after I ran an errand in it yesterday. We also have a Caravan with 255K (in round numbers) on it.

All I can say is, I won't drive more than 5 hours at a time these days, and thank ghod for airplanes.



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JS

A couple of comments here:

1) It seems to be a lot easier to rack up mi^2/hr if you just do a one-way trip.

I think this is cheating. ;-)

We don't want to measure how fast you can drive, but how far you can drive without resting very long at your destination before driving all the way back home (like Kubla's 36 round trip from Ithaca to Chicago just to see a baseball game).


2) According to my research, the greatest mi^2/hr figure I can locate within the lower 48 is Seattle to Key West, FL. According to mappoint.msn.com, it's 7010 miles and 110 hours round trip. Toss in 10 hours for breaks (two drivers obviously), and I get a virtually unachievable 410,000 mi^2/hr.


[This message has been edited by JS (edited 07-31-2003).]