{"id":11392,"date":"2012-08-16T17:48:23","date_gmt":"2012-08-16T22:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=11392"},"modified":"2021-05-28T13:27:56","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T18:27:56","slug":"shortest-48","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/shortest-48\/","title":{"rendered":"Shortest 48"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today I’m fortunate enough to present a guest article from Jon Persky. Jon is a frequent contributor to the Twelve Mile Circle with a long history of insightful comments. He also inspired the popular Counting Border Crossings<\/a> article a couple of years ago. In other words, Jon is an aficionado of geo-oddities of the highest order.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jon contacted me a few weeks ago. He had been working on an interesting problem. What was the shortest road distance between all 48 continental United States plus the District of Columbia? In a weird coincidence, Data Pointed wondered the same thing<\/a>. Then he published an article right around the time Jon was finishing-up his research. So Jon and I took another look at his draft. We felt it was different enough from the Data Pointed article and we decided to stick with it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without further ado, and with sincere thanks and appreciation, I turn the remainder of 12MC today over to Jon:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Suppose you wanted to drive to all 48 continental United States. Sure, many with time on their hands and a yearning to see the country have accomplished this feat and have the stickers<\/a> to prove it. But let’s up the stakes a bit: in a scene eerily reminiscent of the Keanu Reeves movie “Speed,” imagine that there’s a bomb in your trunk rigged to go off when your odometer hits 6,500 miles. Without hitching your car to someone’s U-Haul – that would be cheating – can you complete your dream roadtrip and make it out alive?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Extreme Road-Tripping<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Extreme road-tripping (minus the time bomb) is actually a sport with a devoted following. The Iron Butt Association<\/a> administers a long list of lengthy motorcycle rides. If you’re up to it, you can ride 1,500 miles in 24 hours and win a handsome certificate. (To do this, you’d have to average over 65 miles per hour assuming you can manage to spend only 1 hour buying gas, eating, and using the bathroom.) The Association also awards a prize to those who visit 48 states in the span of ten days. There are a bunch of rules: you have to visit an actual town in each state, and you need a receipt from a gas station or store in each state showing the time and date that you visited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

True aficionados, not content with only 48 states, continue to Hyder, Alaska<\/a>, the easternmost town in Alaska and the closest by road to the lower 48. (Fun facts: (1) Hyder is the only U.S. town that uses a Canadian area code, 250; (2) the state of Alaska pays for the children of Hyder to attend school across the border in Stewart, B.C.). The 49-state record, held by Iron Butt founder Ron Ayres, is 7 days, 0 hours, and 20 minutes<\/a>. If you’re the four-wheel type, you might be interested in this guy<\/a> made it to Hyder in 7 and a half days – in a 1932 roadster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Distance vs. Time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If driving nonstop for four days without sleeping is not your thing – and, for the sake of drivers and pedestrians everywhere, please let it not be your thing – then shoot for distance, not time. The man who finished the 48-state drive in 97 hours claims<\/a> that he has designed “the shortest route on record” – a 6,500-mile trip – but he won’t tell you what it is. Real geography fans don’t keep secrets. So, I set out to both break his record and tell everyone what it is. And as an added measure of difficulty, I decided to add the District of Columbia. It’s not a state, but it should be!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First Attempt<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So, let’s get going in search of a sub-6,500-mile route. Here’s my first attempt, connecting the southwestern tip of Michigan with Bellows Falls, Vermont:<\/p>\n\n\n\n