# Almost Home **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 29, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/almost-home/604407 "2011-11-29T02:29:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/almost-home/604407/21 "2011-11-30T04:13:02Z")
“Almost home” is about 10% of the journey. So coming from the office 10 minutes away it’s entering our neighborhood. Flying from halfway across the country, it’s about when I get in the car at the airport for the 30 minute drive home. etc. The closest thing I have to a fixed landmark is\*\* The Giant Chickens\*\*. A few miles from home there’s an old antique store in a barn & barn yard alongside what used to be a country highway and is now a freeway. It’s full of old wooden buckboard wagons, rusting 1900’s farm implements, etc. It’s a farmin’ man’s antique joint, not a lady’s store full of fussy doilies & bumpy red glassware. The ancient geezer who owns this stuff spent years gathering it all & is now spending his dotage trying unsuccessfully to sell it. A few years ago he somehow ended up with four 12-foot-tall fiberglass chickens. They look like they belong on the roof of some 1960s fried chicken franchise. And there they sat in his yard by the roadside; a small flock of very big birds. Slowly their numbers dwindled. About 6 months ago one became none. I gotta admit I miss that last chicken. Even now when traveling that route my wife & I still reckon our progress by the Giant Chicken(s). “Where are you? I’m almost to the Giant Chicken. OK, see you soon.” ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/almost-home/604407/22 "2011-11-30T04:56:01Z")
I used to travel to Utah by car a lot for work. On the way back, as you approach Denver, there are a series of signs warning truckers of the steep grades and winding roads yet to come. Interestingly, these do not exist in the high mountains, maybe it is too obvious. I guess many truckers drop their guard as they know they are close to the flatlands, therefore the signs. The very last one reads: TRUCKERS YOU ARE NOT DOWN YET ANOTHER 1 1/2 MILES OF STEEP GRADES AND SHARP TURNS TO GO That’s the point when I know I am 30 minutes from home. I get off at the next exit, turn north, get through Golden and then it’s a wide open Hwy. 93 to home. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/almost-home/604407/23 "2011-11-30T06:02:44Z")
I know exactly what y’all mean! For me, driving in to San Diego from Los Angeles, the San Diego county line is the first hint of home, and seeing the immense mammary domes of the San Onofre nuclear power station is a comforting and welcome sign. ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/almost-home/604407/24 "2011-11-30T08:34:13Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > Beautifully said, **syncope** ; close to poetry. Agreed, that was lovely. A specific route - driving home to the San Francisco area from either Tahoe/Reno or Las Vegas west from I-5 in California via highway 580. This is always at night, when it’s dark. You drive through the fairly uninteresting, hilly region of the “Altamont Pass” (with the wind turbines, unseen at the late hour.) Then you come up over the hill… Once my parents were in the car with us on a family trip and told them “we’re about to come over the hill to Livermore now, ready?” They gasped as we crested the hill in darkness and saw the shocking, sudden, yet beautiful, flood of lights of Livermore/Dublin/Pleasanton splayed out for miles. 30 minutes or less 'til home, and what a welcome! ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/almost-home/604407/25 "2011-11-30T15:56:49Z")
**missred** , I’m not sure just where or when you said it, but I do recall fondly that you said you enjoyed some of the threads I had started on “geography trivia” and related issues. This thread of yours made me want to revisit some of those threads, so as an exercise in trying to locate some that might be of interest to others who have posted here, I did a vanity search on my threads that had at least 5 replies and selected these to share. In light of the somewhat relaxed treatment of “zombie threads” these days, it might be worth the risk to reply to any that appeal to you. At worst, I now will have a place to look for those threads without having to repeat the process: > **[You can't go home again](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=204570)** > > The little town I spent my grammar school days in, as well as much of my earlier childhood, is painful to revisit. I did so not too long ago to see the gravestones my brother and I had ordered for our parents’ graves. Daddy died in 1995 and Mama in... You can’t go home again 08-14-2003, 10:07 AM > **[Relating to neighboring states/countries: N-S or E-W?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=322453)** > > A while back we had a thread that dealt with differing time zones and how moving to a new zone caused long-ranging adjustments to schedules and such. In a similar spirit, how do you relate to adjacent states (or countries for those outside the USA)... Relating to neighboring states/countries: N-S or E-W? 06-23-2005, 09:29 AM > **[Who's Farthest from "big water"?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=324120)** > > Among the trivia about where people choose to live, I have heard that a large majority (in the 80-90% range) of Canadians live within 100 miles from the USA border. Also that a large majority of USA people live near one of the coasts (Atlantic,... Who’s Farthest from “big water”? 07-05-2005, 09:02 AM > **[A For Fun Geography Game](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=329248)** > > Without referring to maps, atlases, websites or other aids, and using just your memory of where places are, see if you can give a word description, if need be by referring to other places more likely to be known to others, of these fairly well known... A For Fun Geography Game 08-08-2005, 10:56 AM > **[Down/Up/Over/Out/Back/etc. in Giving Directions](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=329638)** > > When you’re telling someone else either how to get to your location or where you location is relative to another place, what do these words indicate to you: Down Out Over Back Up others that you use in this context To me, Up – means either... Down/Up/Over/Out/Back/etc. in Giving Directions 08-10-2005, 03:13 PM > **[Microgeography Trivia](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=362417)** > > Did I just make up a word? I haven’t bothered to look up whether “microgeography” was a known idea before I thought of it just now. I was trying to think of a word that would convey (at least long enough for you to click and see what was going on)... Microgeography Trivia 03-11-2006, 08:34 AM > **[Crossing Borders: Can you tell?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=368466)** > > The What’s your tri-state area? thread got me to wondering about another phenomenon I have noticed when crossing the Tennessee/Alabama border on I-65, which I did again just this week. You can almost see the geography change and I don’t mean just the... Crossing Borders: Can you tell? 04-22-2006, 08:26 AM > **[US States Capitals Superlatives: Help build a list](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=368910)** > > For some reason the other day I got to wondering which state’s capital is the farthest from the geographical center of the state, and therefore nearest to that state’s border. Some poking around with maps has led me to suspect it may be Boston. If... US States Capitals Superlatives: Help build a list 04-25-2006, 01:08 PM > **[How far from where you live now were you born?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=372938)** > > Just to test a theory of mine, please respond with one of these possibilities: Within 30 miles 30-60 miles 60-100 miles 100-200 miles 200-400 miles over 400 miles (Yeah, those are more or less arbitrary mileages, but they’re kind of into the time... How far from where you live now were you born? 05-24-2006, 07:30 AM > **[The strangeness of boundaries](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=379485)** > > I have posted several threads over the three years I’ve been here that deal in one way or another with the illusion of boundaries, borders, demarcation lines, etc. There have been a few of those threads that got interesting with varying views of what... The strangeness of boundaries 07-13-2006, 07:57 AM > **["Gravity Hills" and other anomalies](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=381209)** > > There’s a section of roadway near the exitway from Edwin Warner Park on the outskirts of Nashville where (before the road was blocked off to traffic) you used to be able to park, leave the car in neutral with the brake off and “coast” uphill. This... “Gravity Hills” and other anomalies 07-25-2006, 11:08 AM > **[Geographical "Regions" = Bigger than state and/or country: What's yours?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=382156)** > > In the recent thread Non-USA Dopers: Stand and be counted. Please. it is becoming apparent that perhaps country is too narrow a geographical designation for groupings of Dopers, and by extension the population as a whole. This thread is primarily to... Geographical “Regions” = Bigger than state and/or country: What’s yours? 08-01-2006, 10:10 AM > **[Essentials for Your Basic Small Town (a la Western movies)](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=382305)** > > On the way to the barber shop about an hour ago the thought hit me that even a small town needs a barber. Then I thought of other essential goods and services for a small town to be moderately self-sufficient: Dentist Restaurant/cafe/diner – some... Essentials for Your Basic Small Town (a la Western movies) 08-02-2006, 11:19 AM > **[How close do you live to "the coast"?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=382841)** > > In miles (feet if it’s that close) how far do you live from an ocean, gulf, sea, or other salt water body of water, not counting The Great Salt Lake or other “inland seas”? Don’t count the Great Lakes. It must have a coast and not just a shore or... How close do you live to “the coast”? 08-06-2006, 07:35 AM [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=383015](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=383015) How quickly could you get onto an Interstate Highway from home? 08-07-2006, 12:30 PM [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=384424](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=384424) How close do you live to Franklin? (USA Dopers primarily) 08-17-2006, 09:23 AM [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=406981](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=406981) Average Distances between Modern communities 02-04-2007, 10:23 AM [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=411516](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=411516) How close is close? 03-08-2007, 01:56 PM [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=411872](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=411872) A Friendly Little Poll – Car Traveling 03-11-2007, 11:26 AM [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=409405](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=409405) Maps and Geographical Oddities – Five (or more) Corners? 02-21-2007, 12:31 PM [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=428901](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=428901) Just what does “home” mean to you? 07-15-2007, 10:25 AM [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=429175](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=429175) Which Doper lives closest to the center of his/her state? 07-17-2007, 09:14 AM [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=463626](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=463626) Border dwellers: These questions are for you 04-12-2008, 05:07 PM [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=464012](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=464012) For USA Dopers: What town/city is nearest the center of “your region”? 04-15-2008, 11:42 AM [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=507027](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=507027) Things you’ve learned about home after you left 02-17-2009, 12:26 PM [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=512368](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=512368) Cities on Borders 03-31-2009, 08:17 AM [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=577617](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=577617) USA Geography Blind Spots 09-09-2010, 06:32 AM [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=554045](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=554045) Some Geography Trivia Fun: Degree Confluences 02-28-2010, 01:17 PM ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/almost-home/604407/26 "2011-12-01T00:13:46Z")
Usually when Mrs. Homie and I travel by car, we’re going south. Which means via I-55. About ~25 miles south of Springfield is a lone windmill, about the size of one of those industrial wind-farm windmills. Whenever I see that I know I’m close to home. ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/almost-home/604407/27 "2011-12-01T02:32:30Z")
**Zeldar** , that’s quite a list! I’m about a third of the way through. 🙂 There’s some interesting stuff there. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/almost-home/604407/28 "2011-12-01T02:35:29Z")
> [@missred](#): > > **Zeldar** , that’s quite a list! I’m about a third of the way through. 🙂 There’s some interesting stuff there. Thanks! I was afraid some might take that as a glorified form of threadshitting. :o Wasn’t I right about your fascination and enjoyment with geography trivia? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/almost-home/604407/29 "2011-12-01T16:53:38Z")
> [@voguevixen](#): > > Agreed, that was lovely. > > A specific route - driving home to the San Francisco area from either Tahoe/Reno or Las Vegas west from I-5 in California via highway 580. This is always at night, when it’s dark. You drive through the fairly uninteresting, hilly region of the “Altamont Pass” (with the wind turbines, unseen at the late hour.) Then you come up over the hill… > > Once my parents were in the car with us on a family trip and told them “we’re about to come over the hill to Livermore now, ready?” > > They gasped as we crested the hill in darkness and saw the shocking, sudden, yet beautiful, flood of lights of Livermore/Dublin/Pleasanton splayed out for miles. > > 30 minutes or less 'til home, and what a welcome! There’s a very similar hill when driving into Vegas on I-15 from the North. At least it was this way back in the 80s when I lived in Vegas. You’d be out driving across the solid blackness of unoccupied desert. No farm lights or anything else. Then you’d crest a shallow rise and suddenly, there’d be all of Las Vegas spread out before you. The road was aligned so it pointed pretty much exactly at downtown, with the Strip trailing off to the left & away from you. The valley is a shallow concave bowl and you were far enough up the hillside that you were looking down on the close suburbs, then downtown & the Strip, and finally the far suburbs climbing up the far side of the bowl. It was always a heck of a show in the clear desert air. On another note: Flying into Vegas back in the 70s you could spot the airport (McCarran) from 50 miles out as a bright cluster of lights in the desert blackness well beyond the south edge of town. By the 80s it was getting harder to identify amongst the other scattered patches of lights in the desert. By the late 90s you found it as the dark area embedded in the ever-expanding sea of dense urban / suburban lights. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/almost-home/604407/30 "2011-12-01T17:04:49Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > There’s a very similar hill when driving into Vegas on I-15 from the North. At least it was this way back in the 80s when I lived in Vegas. You’d be out driving across the solid blackness of unoccupied desert. No farm lights or anything else. > > Then you’d crest a shallow rise and suddenly, there’d be all of Las Vegas spread out before you. The road was aligned so it pointed pretty much exactly at downtown, with the Strip trailing off to the left & away from you. The valley is a shallow concave bowl and you were far enough up the hillside that you were looking down on the close suburbs, then downtown & the Strip, and finally the far suburbs climbing up the far side of the bowl. > > It was always a heck of a show in the clear desert air. It’s impressive even during the day. I’ve driven to/through Vegas from Elko, NV a few times and have always found that fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/almost-home/604407/31 "2011-12-01T18:00:36Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > Thanks! I was afraid some might take that as a glorified form of threadshitting. :o > > Wasn’t I right about your fascination and enjoyment with geography trivia? That you are. 🙂 Only on the Dope do I find fellow geography geeks. 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/almost-home/604407.md?page=1)