How far is 790 kilometers?
I had to sit down. Math requires my full attention.
I scratched my nose and adjusted my shorts. Then I looked at the sky for a while, saw some puffy clouds and remembered how it feels when flying in an airplane, all sleek and ethereal, and how birds wheel gracefully between those clouds but don’t seem to be bothered by heights at all which isn’t really surprising when you remember that they just have bird brains and only God knows what they think.
Then I returned to the math.
We left Roncesvalles before the sun arrived. The tough climb over the Pyrenees was now behind us. We didn’t know what was ahead, but we knew there would be a lot of it.
According to my calculations, 790 kilometers is only 1/486th the average distance between the earth and the moon, but greater than the distance across Kansas (which is frightful to everybody except Jayhawkers and Texans).
790 kilometers is about the distance from Eugene to San Francisco, Atlanta to Baton Rouge, or from Boise to the next open gas station.
I was startled to discover that 790 kilometers is equal to 1,783 Empire State buildings or 17,173 Statue of Liberties in the prone position, torch to heel. As a Cincinnati Reds fan, I was cheered by the thought of taking the kink out of the “Gateway Arch,” smashing it out flat, and counting how many arches it takes to reach from one side of Spain to the other. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough power-skills to flatten the “Pride of St Louis.” Neither do the Reds these days, apparently.
“The 790” is a thing.
Driving 790 kilometers on a U.S. interstate at 70 miles an hour takes about 7 hours.
Covering 790 kilometers at 100 miles per hour on the German Autobahn takes about 4 hours and 54 minutes. I know people who have tried to do that between Kansas City and Colorado as well.
Before leaving Roncesvalles, we took “the picture.” We had a mere 25 kilometers in our pockets. There were 790 more in front of us.
¡Buen Camino!
Yo’ Bob. Well of course we had to.
Join Mark and Vicki for a Mediterranean experience May 25-June 5, 2022. We'll be cruising aboard the luxurious Celebrity Infinity. See the link here for details. Onboard lectures will provide focus for the group as we visit the ports of Olympia, Santorini, Ephesus, and Athens among others. Optional add-on visits to Venice or Rome are possible on either end of the trip. Contact me at markziese@gmail.com.