Geographically Challenged!

[ghYHZ]

We were in Massachusetts a couple of weeks ago.....staying at a hotel in Lowell. While loading up the car on the last morning the couple parked in the next space noted our Nova Scotia plate: "are you ever far from home......that's up by Greenland isn't it?.....how many days will it take you to get there?"  

"About 10 hours.......We'll be across the border at lunch time and home for supper"  

They had Virginia plates......roughly the same distance.  

[1995hoo]

I grew up here in Fairfax County and went to law school at Duke. One Thanksgiving my grandmother was visiting and when I was about to leave to head back to school, she asked what the rush was. I said it was about 20 miles farther to Durham than it was to her house in Brooklyn and that the drive would take longer and she said, "That's not true, North Carolina's only one state over."

[jwolfer]

i live in Jacksonville FL and when I was in college ( back in 1991) a friend of mine ( who is now an Electrical Engineer) was meeting friends from Atlanta in Savannah.  He wasn't sure who to get there so he asked them how to get there and of course coming from Atlanta they said take I-75 to I-16 east... so he did that.. went from Jax out I-10 to I-75 N to Macon and took 16 east... a 2-2.5 hour trip became 7 hours...  Dumbass...

Now he would prob just listen to GPS

[huskeroadgeek]

Wow, could I tell some stories of geographically challenged people in a lot of different contexts. The kind of stories that amaze me most though are people who make a wrong turn or miss a turnoff and go miles and miles before they realize it. Here's a story that still amazes me how somebody could miss it:

I went to college in Searcy, AR and it was pretty common for people to make trips from there to Memphis, about 100 miles away. The common route was to take the US 67 freeway to Bald Knob and then US 64 from there to I-55 at Marion and then take I-55 South to I-40 and then take either I-40 or I-55 into Memphis depending on which part of the city you were going to. When returning from Memphis, once you get on I-55 North from I-40, US 64 is the first exit. I knew somebody who one time missed the exit for some reason and kept on going. They didn't realize they had missed the exit until they saw the state entrance sign for Missouri-over 60 miles past the exit. This person had driven this route at least several times before. How does somebody who has driven a route before miss an exit and go that far without realizing it?

[corco]

I work at a hotel in Tucson. I got a call from a guest who had flown into Phoenix asking how to get to the hotel. I asked where she currently was and she said "I'm on the 10" and I said "where on the 10?" and she said  "I'm coming up on Quartzsite"

She said she knew it was 2 hours from Phoenix on I-10 but didn't know which direction and drove 2 hours the wrong way.

She was pretty pissed off when I told her she had gone the wrong direction.

[agentsteel53]

I was once on the coast here in Orange County, southern California.  Santa Catalina Island is visible from there, as it is about 20 miles off the coast.

two tourists were looking at it, one says to the other:

"is that Japan?'

[realjd]

I'll admit that I'm geographically challenged with western states regarding their size. Denver and Albuquerque are close together in my mind for instance since they're both on I-25 and only one state away.

[Takumi]

When my cousin was a child she wanted to get in an airplane so she could see the lines between the states.

[tdindy88]

When my cousin was a child she wanted to get in an airplane so she could see the lines between the states.

Well..technically you could do that, you can see the rivers that form some boundaries and even on land you can occasionally see the property lines and note the boundary from that. True it's not a hand-drawn line, but...

[jwolfer]

I'll admit that I'm geographically challenged with western states regarding their size. Denver and Albuquerque are close together in my mind for instance since they're both on I-25 and only one state away.

At least you realize you challennged.  Many people driving to Florida for the first time are amazed by the scale of the state.. Especailly if you come from the Northeast... so many small states.  You see people all happy they are in Florida and God help them if they are going to Key West.  At least another 8-9 hours in the car

[Alex]

I took AMTRAK from Rochester to NYC in 1994, and when the line paralleled the Hudson River, a kid asked his mother "Mom, is that the Pacific Ocean?"

[agentsteel53]

At least you realize you challennged.  Many people driving to Florida for the first time are amazed by the scale of the state.. Especailly if you come from the Northeast... so many small states.  You see people all happy they are in Florida and God help them if they are going to Key West.  At least another 8-9 hours in the car

I get stuck in that all the time!  Mobile to Tampa is not "about four hours".

[1995hoo]

At least you realize you challennged.  Many people driving to Florida for the first time are amazed by the scale of the state.. Especailly if you come from the Northeast... so many small states.  You see people all happy they are in Florida and God help them if they are going to Key West.  At least another 8-9 hours in the car

I get stuck in that all the time!  Mobile to Tampa is not "about four hours".

515 miles via the Interstate. To make that in about four hours would be pretty damn impressive.

[agentsteel53]

I had briefly eyeballed the map and figured it to be just under 300 miles.  it doesn't visually, look farther than the Tampa-Miami drive, which I believe is about 275. 

[1995hoo]

I had briefly eyeballed the map and figured it to be just under 300 miles.  it doesn't visually, look farther than the Tampa-Miami drive, which I believe is about 275. 

It's a long way across that panhandle. The I-75 exit from I-10 in Florida is Exit 296 (on I-75, I-10 is Exit 435; the I-4 interchange is Exit 261, so you have the Tampa—Miami distance pretty close).

I think a lot of paper maps distort Florida because so many of them put the panhandle in an inset, sometimes with a different scale than the main map. Makes it look smaller than it really is.

[agentsteel53]

I think a lot of paper maps distort Florida because so many of them put the panhandle in an inset, sometimes with a different scale than the main map. Makes it look smaller than it really is.

yes, the trusty Rand McNally definitely does this.

they also make New Mexico look tiny.

[tchafe1978]

I remember once, I think I was about 6 or 7 years old, couldn't have been older than 8. My mom and I were riding with an older couple from our church in downtown Milwaukee after some event (I can't even remember what that event was). We were going around various blocks aimlessly, looking to get on I-43 or I94 to head back home. The older gentelman driving asked, not expecting me to answer, "How do we get back to the freeway?" I looked up and saw a "TO I-43" sign and I said, "Just follow those signs!" To this day, my still talks about it in amazement about how I knew to find the way back to the freeway. I never thought it took too much brains to drive in the direction the signs point you in.

[The High Plains Traveler]

I think a lot of paper maps distort Florida because so many of them put the panhandle in an inset, sometimes with a different scale than the main map. Makes it look smaller than it really is.

yes, the trusty Rand McNally definitely does this.

they also make New Mexico look tiny.

What's worse than the Florida panhandle is how western Ontario is rendered. And, yes, putting the 5th geographically largest state on one page will make it really tiny. Las Cruces is almost a suburb of Albuquerque.

[broadhurst04]

How many people have stood in downtown Detroit, looked across the Detroit River, and not realized that was Canada on the other side?

[signalman]

I remember going to college with a girl who thought she lived along the Mississippi River, but she lived in Pennsylvania.  I asked her to make sure she did infact live in PA, as I wasn't positive.  Once she told me yes, I asked where and she told me Towanda.  I had to burst her bubble and tell her that mighty river was the Susquehanna.  She was quite disappointed and I was amazed that for all her youth she thought she lived along the Mississippi.

[signalman]

Wow, could I tell some stories of geographically challenged people in a lot of different contexts. The kind of stories that amaze me most though are people who make a wrong turn or miss a turnoff and go miles and miles before they realize it.

Boy, can I relate.  I work in a business right off I-80 in Northern NJ.  I get numerous people every week who are lost and wayy off course for their destination.  (They're lucky to stumble upon me, they didn't know they asked a road geek.)


A very common one is people coming out of NYC on the George Washington Bridge and wanting the NJ Turnpike South.  However, by the time they ask me they've already driven about 30 miles past the split on I-80.  They didn't notice any of the I-80 trailblazers, apparently. 

I'll ask them, "Let me guess, you came across the GWB, upper level, right?"
"Yup"
"Yeah, you missed the split because you were out in the left lanes when you needed to keep right and now you've driven a good 30 miles out of your way.  Where do you want to go?"

Once they tell me I direct them from where they are

[ghYHZ]

How many people have stood in downtown Detroit, looked across the Detroit River, and not realized that was Canada on the other side?

And then realized you you had to drive South to get there!

[Duke87]

Odd geographical shapes can easily distort perception of distance. Florida is notorious for this, of course, but it's not the only state that can have that sort of effect.
Also contributing is the phenomenon that places that are more rural tend to psychologically shrink in size because there's less there.

Cape May is another good example of further away than it looks. It's two hours away from northern NJ - the exit numbers on the GSP make this apparent but visually on the map it doesn't look like 150 miles. I keep wanting to think of the Driscoll Bridge as the midpoint of the parkway. It's not. It's nearly three quarters of the way up.
Also, Cape May looks to be about a half hour away from Camden... in reality it's twice that. What gets you here is that it's not just straight over from Wilmington, it's down there. And South Jersey, despite the mental tendency to want to orient things along an axis, is not aligned north-south, it leans. Significantly.
I fell into this trap myself this past weekend when I decided to make what I thought was a slight detour on my way to Pennsylvania which ended up adding two and a half hours to the trip.


Another example of geographically deceptive: I-81 in Virginia. When I was making my trip home from down south last month I had initially figured I would leave Chattanooga in the morning and arrive in DC before nightfall... after all, I-95 is about 170-something miles in Virginia, so I-81 should be maybe a little more, perhaps 200 or so, right? Nope, I-66 is exit 300. Again, it's the diagonalness that fools you. You think you just have to go north when in reality you've got a lot of east to go as well.

Corollary with this: in 2003 when we made a family trip to Cleveland, my father was saying "well, this is the furthest west we've ever been!" I then pointed out to him that it wasn't, that Tampa (where we'd also been) was actually a bit further west. He didn't believe me.

He also didn't believe me when we were discussing places to go see baseball games and I told him that Detroit was closer than Cincinnati (to Connecticut). After all, Cincy is in Ohio, but Detroit's in Michigan, that's an extra state away! Yeah, well... despite that, it's not as far west and it's closer to our latitude.

[triplemultiplex]

How many people have stood in downtown Detroit, looked across the Detroit River, and not realized that was Canada on the other side?

There's a popular, if unverified, anecdote in northern Wisconsin that goes something like this:
A couple on vacation stops in Ashland, WI for a break and admires the view across Chequamegon Bay where one can see Washburn and the upland of the Bayfield Peninsula.  After gazing for a while, they start to talk about what they're looking at.  The husband says, "I believe that's Canada over there."
The wife isn't sure, so she casually turns to a local who happens to be at the same vantage and asks, "Excuse me, but is that Canada over there?"
The local Ashlander pauses for a moment knowing full well that Canada is over 100 miles further north.  But seeing an opportunity to have some fun he replies, "Oh yah, it sure is, doncha know?"
The husband says, "See honey, I told you so."
The couple gets back into their car and starts the long journey back south thinking they've seen Canada.

[JREwing78]

I think a lot of paper maps distort Florida because so many of them put the panhandle in an inset, sometimes with a different scale than the main map. Makes it look smaller than it really is.

They do that a lot with Michigan too. People don't realize how far across the UP is when headed to places like Houghton, Ironwood, or Ontonagon from downstate. It's about 4-5 hours to the Mackinac Bridge from the big cities downstate, and another 4-6 hours to get across the UP.