It's all a matter of geography+culture.
For instance, when you live in NYC, Rockland County, all of 20-30 miles north of ground zero, is referred to as "Upstate NY," even though 95% of NY is still north of there.
MA is sort of the same way. The center of their universe is Boston.
Even though I'm only a measly 100 miles north of Logan airport, this part of NH is considered frontier wilderness. Even Worchester (pronounced "Wuss-tur"
) is considered western MA, even though it is only 43 miles from Boston. This is because anything west of Boston outside of I-95 is "western MA!"
Rachel is north of Springfield, MA, which most of us would call "central MA." She's about 100 miles from Neal, and 125 from Scott. And from Kingston, she is about 130 miles.
So at 70 miles to ftwelder, and 120 miles to me, you begin to see how geography+culture affects our perceptions of distances.
