It's a nine hour drive From me to you South on 1-95 And I'll do it 'til the day that I die If I need to Just to see you - Fountains of Wayne

For years I was fascinated by life on the East Coast. Having lived my entire life in Texas, the idea that Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. were all close enough to drive to without an overnight stay was so foreign to a kid who grew up in a state where the distance from home to El Paso was farther than the distance from El Paso to Los Angeles. Then I drove all over the East Coast on numerous occasions and realized that, while physically close, getting around by car routinely took longer than the driving distance would indicate.

So, when a press release for a contest called America's Chance for Romance landed in my inbox with the line "If singles are sick of dating in their own state, this will give them the chance to be paired with someone from a completely different state based on similarities from their questionnaire and video submission," I had to chuckle.

The Fountains of Wayne song I quoted at the beginning of this story might be very romantic, but the song also mentions all the wonderful things to see along the north-west highway traversing the eastern seaboard...

They sell posters of girls washing cars And unicorns and stars And Guns N' Roses album covers They've got most of the Barney DVDs Coffee mugs and tees That say Virginia Is For Lovers But it's not Round here it's just for truckers who forgot To fill up on gasoline Back up near Aberdeen