Point #31- On the road again...Travel 1774 miles on Texas Highways

To obtain this point: One must travel a total of 1774 miles in the beautiful state of Texas on its highways system. This point is designed to get out of the big cities and see some of our great state. There are a couple caveats here:
- City Commuter Rule- Highway travel must be done outside of major cities (sorry commuters).
- Rural Texas Rule- If you drive on a two-lane highway (one lane going each way), you can double your mileage count.
- Lance Armstrong Rule- If you bike on rural Texas on highways, you may multiply your total mileage by 5.

So, one might ask, "Why 1774 miles? Seems like a stupid number." Well, actually, I am glad you inquired! 1774 miles it the summation of the mileage if you criss crossed Texas from North (Texline, TX) to South (Brownsville) for 915 miles and from East (Orange, TX) to West (El Paso, TX) on I-10 for 859 miles. The original plan was that each person should make these respective drives! That did not sit real well with me after realizing that no person would ever want to go from Brownsville to Texline.

So the distance across Texas (east to west) is really long, so let's put it into a little perspective: Let's say you are very bored and sitting in Orange, Texas on I-10 and deciding whether to go East or West. If you went west you could get to El Paso in 859 miles and finally reach the other end of Texas. Let's say you wanted to go east towards Louisiana and drive 859 miles. You would continue right past Baton Rouge (LA), New Orleans (LA), Biloxi (MS), Mobile (AL), Tallahassee (FL), and Jacksonville (FL). At that time, you would continue on a submarine car for roughly another 80 miles into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to complete the 859 miles. I hope you like scuba diving.

So you think that driving across Texas east to west is long. Well, wait there a second! It is even longer to drive south to north. Here's way of thinking about it: Let's say you actually lived in Brownsville and drove the 915 miles to Texline in the panhandle. You would probably be very happy for yourself. That drive is roughly the same distance from London, England to Venice Italy. In the European version, you would have to go through the English Channel (again our submarine car), France, Germany, Switzerland, maybe a little of Austria, and the Alps to get to Venice.

Now let's say you wanted to stay domestic and were leaving from Chicago to the East Coast and wanted to drive the same distance as it would take to get across Texas. You could get all the way to Hartford, CT! This trip from Chicago would include passing through 7 states (IL, IN, OH, PN, NY, NJ, and CT) before getting to Hartford.

Anyways, I figure you get the idea that Texas is a really big state. I am sure you could come up with a geographical interesting perspectives.

Enjoy Texas and did you know that it is big. :)