Another thing that blows my mind is that if you cut Alaska in half, Texas would be the third largest state.
I read about some guys that took a 9 day road trip just following the border of Texas and I believe it was 3,331 miles.Back in 1988 we moved to Texarkana for a job. I remember thinking "Oh Boy! We'll be living in a state with a ocean side. By golly, we'll probably be on the beach every weekend."
Finally a weekend came when we loaded up the car and boat then headed for Galveston. FIVE hours later, we finally got there.
I was telling a pen-pal who lives in England about it. "Holy Hell!" he exclaimed. "If I drove 5 hours in any direction, I'd end up very wet."
A few years after that, we got back home from vacation in Chicago. I had a message on my answering machine for a job interview in El Paso. I remember thinking, "oh well, at least I'm not driving to Chicago." Then I started checking and realized that Texarkana was closer to Chicago than it was to El Paso.
kinda made me miss this tune:the place smells like a thrift store sofa.