16. And no, I'm not talking about accents. (Nothing personal, but I'd much rather lean towards Boston than Birmingham. Laugh at me all you want when I say "wicked." You know you're just jealous.) Yesterday, when my friend Amy asked me how far away a church we visited was, I replied, "Well, it's not really far. But it takes forever to get there. Like 20 minutes."
And that cracked her up. With good reason. In New England, its normal to measure distance in time rather than miles because there's never a good way to where you want to go - Have you ever tried to drive from Hartford to Providence? - but the fact that I now consider 20 minutes a long drive is agreeably ridiculous. We drove 15 minutes to church in NEPA and never thought twice about it. I use to commute 45 minutes every morning for work, then upped it to 90 minutes twice a week just for kicks. (Well, no, not really. But I told myself that to try and make getting up at 5 a.m. more fun. It didn't work.) Unfortunately, a NOVA minute is usually accompanied by lights, traffic, and at least ten cab drivers who (cue Chris Traeger) *literally* cannot drive. Multiply that by twenty and you feel my pain.
What about you? What do you consider a "long" drive?
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