Omg The US is so huge!!

Ghana is a very small country. However, I never considered it so before moving to the US. The farthest distance between the north and south of Ghana was about 14 hours and between the east and the west was about 5 hours. I lived in Accra which is the capital, and everyone knew each other especially if you went to the same schools, you were bound to randomly bump into someone you knew at the mall, in town, and in your neighborhood etc. Driving for 3 hours was seen as quite a trip.

Now I have friends all over the US, but most of them live in the east coast. When my plans to come to the US was set, I called them up and told them of how I was now going to see them everyday. They all told me that I really wouldn't be able to see them often since I was going to live in Oregon, which was on the west coast. I replied to them that they shouldn't worry about that, and I would always drive over the weekends to visit. In my mind I was calculating about 3 hours drive tops so I couldn't understand why there were making a fuss about the distance. Funny enough they all said ok.
As some of you know I landed in New York, and I had to take another flight from New York to Portland, Oregon. Now this flight lasted almost 6 hours, which is about the same flight time from Ghana to the UK. Even with the long flight across the coasts I still didn't get the hint of how huge the US was, until I asked my husband if we could go for a friends wedding at Atlanta, Georgia. He replied that it was too far, and I jokingly told him that we could always drive, and that it would be like some sort of short road trip, just to convince him. He in turn mentioned that there was no way he was going to drive from Portland to Atlanta, and if there was any chance that we would go at all, it would have to be by flight.
I quickly went over to Google the distance between these cities. I just dropped the whole wedding talk after I saw the results.
Now having lived here for sometime, I have a pretty good idea of how large and diverse the US is, and sometimes when my friends from Ghana call to ask me if I have run into another friend staying at Maryland, I laugh in my head because I just couldn't explain the whole 'US is huge' thing to them. I guess it is one of those things you just have to experience for your self.