Image of The Continguous United States Visualized by Distance to the Nearest McDonald's courtesy of Stephen Von Worly (via Carpe Diem). I know I live in one of the remotest places in the lower 48 states. After all, it's an hour drive's to our nearest grocery store. Here's a map that helps show how remote places are in the U.S. based on the location of 13,000+ McDonald's restaurants.
"For maximum McSparseness, we look westward, towards the deepest, darkest holes in our map: the barren deserts of central Nevada, the arid hills of southeastern Oregon, the rugged wilderness of Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, and the conspicuous well of blackness on the high plains of northwestern South Dakota. There, in a patch of rolling grassland, loosely hemmed in by Bismarck, Dickinson, Pierre, and the greater Rapid City-Spearfish-Sturgis metropolitan area, we find our answer.
Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car!"
So this map shows that we are fairly remote, but not the remotest in the country.
Now I wonder how if the map would look any different if the nearest WalMart was plotted. Our nearest WalMart is 135 miles by car.
Thanks, Dad, for alerting me to this map!
ReplyDeleteWhere's the Walmart that's within 135 miles? Cedar or Payson?
ReplyDeleteHey, your second cousin Kathy here. You beat us on the Walmart front, ours is 110 miles. Tell that to a person from the South and they can't believe you. Though we do have a MCD in town (Moab) so we lose on that count.
ReplyDeleteConsider your isolation a health bonus, no temptation, no grease.
ReplyDeleteVery cool map, I can think of several variations that would also be great (waffle house for example).
ReplyDeleteI wish I were a little more remote!!
ReplyDeleteThey're taking over the world! It looks like the radioactive grease oozing out their doors like the Blob. Promise to try and save some of us!
ReplyDeleteThat map resonates with my experiences driving through Utah; nothing but natural beauty until you get to SLC and the north-south strip of civilization (and interstate) whose other end is Las Vegas.
ReplyDeleteAs for Waffle House (or Awful House), we have two as well as two McDonalds. That's a lot of grease!
real Mcnice! thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteso, now who's going to work up the payday-loans lite-brite map?
Read the book, The China Study. I won't tell you anything more. Have you read it yet? You look at that map and you know why there is such an epidemic..people would rather drive by a McD's and eat trash than to get out of their cars and go in and buy some fruits at the local grocery store. Too bad there is not a map of all the grocery stores in the U.S. Every single city in the U.S. has one or is within resonable driving distance,,,people wouldn't have an excuse for the obesity epidemic. Good nutritional, non processed, no preservative foods right at everyone's grasp, but they choose to go through a so called convenient fast food drive up. Alright dessert survivor, find a map of that one. :)
ReplyDelete