A map of the Uk for Americans

[patrickt]

I was once on vacation in San Antonio and was getting bored after about a week. While doing my laundry I found a map showing sights in the area. Carlsbad Caverns was only about an inch from San Antonio on this map so I told my wife, look its close, lets go see the Caverns. While an interesting drive it was almost 10 hours away at 474 miles! The scale of the map was a bit off I think. From there we went to El Paso, only 151 miles away. When I left New Mexico I had about a half tank of gas. I did not see another sign of civilization until I was about 10 miles from El Paso and almost out of gas!!

This country is huge!!

My neighbors were from NYC and had never driven a car. They took driving lessons and bought a nice used car. Phil asked me for a nice Sunday drive and I suggest north on US287 over a range of mountains and down into Wyoming to Laramie. Then east on Happy Jack Road to Cheyenne, have brunk at Little America, and I-25 from Cheyenne back home.


Phil and the family left about nine and we back by 11:00. I went down and asked if they had car trouble. No, no car trouble. Then Phil said, "When we went over the mountain and you could see forever."


"Yeah."
"Pat, it was empty."
"Yeah, pretty much."
"That's scary."
I thought a minute and laughed and said, "Phil have you ever gone down a flight of stairs into a subway station full of people?"
"Sure."
"That's terrifying. People are dangerous. Empty country isn't."


Also, the two British merchant marines met me and a girl friend the next day and we took them to Fort Clinch, a historic monument from the Second War of Independence. Ann and I kept talking about the old, old fort and one of the sailors laughed and said, "The building my family has a flat in is older than this."


Both space and time are relative.