Once You Are Past Chicago-It is all Gravy

[Spock]

Considering we have usually traveled west from home in the middle of Minnesota-but with a number of trips east also-I am always gobsmacked by how close places are when you go southeast especially.

Li'l Spock just made a trip to Charleston South Carolina and coming home they stopped at Cowpens Battlefield and easily made it an hour so northwest of Indianopolis for the night.

That just doesn't feel right.

Takes about 3/4 of a day from here to get to Chicago.

Our last trip that way-we stayed in Danville, Illinois (on the Indiana border) and easily made to Greenville, SC, (in northwest SC) the next night. Li'l spock stayed there also after night 1 in Louisville KY and while, surprisingly, Great Smoky Park was closed for road repairs they saw the 20 miles of tourist trap hell in Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg area.

Of course, my thoughts turned to how far those places were in Civil War times.

[silverscreenselect]

Of course, my thoughts turned to how far those places were in Civil War times.

Not just in Civil War times.

I'm a big mystery fan, and I had similar thoughts when I read The House without a Key, the first Charlie Chan novel, written in 1925. In the book, a man travels from Boston to Hawaii to visit his aunt. The trip takes two weeks.

Similarly, in the recent Yellowstone spinoff 1923, Harrison Ford's nephew goes to Africa after World War I where he becomes a big game guide. When the family runs into trouble, he and his wife return to Montana, and it takes him a long, long, long time to get there (but he arrives just in the nick of time).