Whilst talking to my sister about yesterday's post, she highlighted a great Americanism."How far," asks I, "is it from you to Atlanta?"
"8 hours," she replies.
You ask any 'Merkin how far something is, and they'll tell you how long it takes to get there. There are flaws however with this system. First and foremost, not every road will be at 65mph. This does not then mean that it takes 2 hours to do 130 miles. And what about breaks. How do you know you'll not stop for an hour and have something to eat or a 5 minute break where you needed a pee. And most importantly, you don't know how long it'll take until you do it for the first time. By the same level of thinking I'm about 4 hours away from London. Or 90 minutes if I put my foot down in a 2.7 litre Rover which blows up outside Cardiff, or 13 hours because my fuel pump relay blew up on the Mercedes meaning I have to get a tow home and a replacement car.
BLS said "it'll be cheaper and quicker just to fly" but the point is I don't want to. I want to see a bit more of the U.S. then the clouds above it. Us Brits know how far apart everything is. Sat Nav tells us that we'll reach our ultimate destination in 216 miles (Bryn) which might take us 3 hours at 70 mph, but more likely about 5 hours because it's not motorway all the way. I'm starting to realise that car rental companies don't like cross border thingies, so it looks like I might be catching a train from Toronto to Windsor, which isn't too bad.
Which apparently takes 2 hours. I have no idea how far it is however.
