Dela-WHERE?

I made the startling, nay, astonishing discovery today that the average WELL EDUCATED midwesterner, when asked, thinks that Delaware is somewhere up by Vermont, if not immediately adjacent to it (although they correctly know where Vermont it). Knowledge base is limited to the brief mention of Delaware in Wayne's World. The average midwesterner also doesn't know that there are beaches in Delaware. When I said that the DE beaches are where people from DC go to for vacation, the immediate assumption was a beach full of senators and congressmen, which also tells me that the average midwesterner believes that the only people living in and around DC are senators and congressmen. Sample size: 4 (natives of TX, KY, WI and IN).

This is interesting considering that most east coasters that I've talked to who haven't really traveled beyond WV can more or less tell you where the states are in relation to one another, but the have a skewed sense of distance in the midwest, myself included a few years ago. For example, Beth came to visit me and Chris a few years ago in Indiana and asked that we "drop her off" in Chicago. She thought Chicago was only an hour away! I explained that, in fact, the airport where I would be picking her up was an hour away, but Chicago (and especially Northwestern, where she was going) was really more like 5 hours away. Example 2: Ian's friend from Texas has a conference in Iowa and asked to stay with him while she was going to this conference. He explained she was welcome to stay, but she might have to get up earlier in the morning than she thought she would to make it there on time.