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Comment by Simon_ORourke | Hacker News Reader

My father in law pulled up beside some holla back in the 1970's to ask the locals if he was on the road to Richmond. The local responded to the enquiry where this road led, and this is legit, "my dear boy, this road leads to everywhere"!

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If he was on US-60, they basically weren't wrong :P

With the exception of a few test tracks and some islands this is basically a universal property of roads and, indeed, what makes them so valuable.

I remember having this realization as a kid. I was standing in my driveway and realized there was an unbroken road from me to the other side of the country (and beyond!). It was one of those the world is so big and so small moments.

If you were in North America, then all the way from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, down to Yaviza, Panama!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prudhoe_Bay,_Alaska

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaviza

Google Maps says it's about a 104-hour drive (without breaks of any kind).

This is why I’ve always found the saying, “You can’t get there from here” so strange. You almost certainly can get there from here.

I think it's meant to be funny in part because it's almost certainly not literally true. (In some tellings, it could be mocking the rural person who says this for being ignorant of the larger world, or for feeling cut off from it.)

You could also think about borders that are closed. Like if you want to go from Haifa to Beirut, the shortest legal route goes through Jordan and Syria!

Or with the Darien Gap, people asking about how to drive from Panama City to Cartagena might be surprised -- you actually can't get there from there (by road).

What's a holla back?

I read it as "My father in law pulled up beside some holla, back in the 1970's" with Holla being a regional pronunciation of hollow/holler https://artsandsciences.sc.edu/appalachianenglish/node/492#:...

I thought they were talking about that holla back girl, but yours makes more sense. :D

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