When I wrote "Ode to some wise Mama's I know" Elliot was just 2 months old and we were still in the midst of a feeding frenzy trying to get his weight up. Leaving the house was pretty tough and even if we did go out we couldn't stray too far. Elliot is 3 months old now and just over 13 lbs! We go out quite a bit these days and have some wonderful adventures.

About a week ago Elliot and I were supposed to have lunch with a friend when I awoke in the morning to the sound of our street being repaved. There was no way to get my car out of the garage, so I asked if my friend and her son would meet at our house and we could walk to the nearby pizza place. According to my yellow pages search the pizza place was only 3/10 of a mile from home, so while I was at it I checked how much further it would be to the nearest Starbucks and was thrilled to discover it was only 1/2 mile further than the pizza place. When they arrived we headed for the pizza place and asked if she and her son would be up for the walk to Starbucks afterwards. It was a beautiful day for a walk, so of course she said yes (something she surely regretted later).

After lunch we walked and walked and walked and walked...45 minutes later we finally arrived at the Starbucks. We were dripping with sweat and Elliot was overdue for a feeding. We ordered coffee (and H2O) and I proceeded to feed (which took an hour because I had not learned yet the art of shortening feedings which I learned a day too late at 'Mommy & Me'). So with two kids and two strollers a cab was out of the picture so we headed back and after another 45 minutes we arrived home. Somehow even with the giant blisters on my feet the walk home did seem shorter. I guess it wasn't the best day to break in a new pair of shoes.

I know I just had a baby and am not in the best shape of my life but that walk really did seem longer than 8/10 of a mile. I decided to go back to the yellow pages and it did indeed say 8/10 of a mile (with Mommy brain you can never be too sure you read something correctly). So I clicked on the map link and proceeded to create driving directions to see which route the 8/10 was taking. And according the driving directions it was actually 2.5 miles one way or 5 miles round-trip! 5 miles is a long trip when you are pushing ~25lbs. But what went wrong? Why were the two distances so different? My husband and I put our brains together and figured out that the yp distance is based on an imaginary straight line between two points/locations. So even though one would NEVER be able to actually travel the imaginary straight line, the nice people at yp still thought we'd care to know that distance! The difference between the two might not always be so large, but since where we live there is a HUGE nature preserve blocking our ability to travel the imaginary straight line it was very significant.

Labels: Adventuring