There are about 3,000 miles between Middletown, Conn., where I have lived for a few years, and Portland, Oregon, where my middle daughter lives on the Columbia River with her wife and their animals (two dogs and a fish), surrounded by marine and aquatic wildlife.
I’ll drive along all 3,000 of those miles this year.
Twice.
There and back.
Mapquest predicts I’ll spend some 44 hours each way driving the speed limit (which I do routinely), plus slowdowns for traffic and accidents and road work and meal breaks and toilet breaks and fuel stops and possibly even van repairs.
The maps offer two routes, which diverge west of Illinois. The “southern” one goes through Iowa
Letters from Away 