Digging to China

Remember when we were kids and we always talked about digging a hole to China? Well, it turns out (like most everything we believed as kids) that we were completely wrong. From almost anywhere in the continental United States, if you dug a hole straight down, you would end up smack-dab in the middle of the Indian Ocean. A few lucky children would actually have been right:

Digging from 20 miles southest of Lamar, Colorado you'd pop out on this little desert island in the middle of nowhere. (Notice the small town on the northeast shore? Also notice the lack of a name.)

About 10 miles southwest of Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, you'd get lucky and hit this beautiful little volcanic island.

Definitely the prettiest place you could dig to from the continental US is this beautiful, snowy, Antarctic Island. You could get here if you started digging from Northern Montana.

Other than those three locations, is seems that anywhere else in the Continental US you dig straight down from will land you right smack-dab in the middle of the ocean.

But what about Alaska and Hawaii? I'm afraid Alaska doesn't help you out much either. Most of Alaska will land you in the Indian Ocean as well, except for the very northern-most tip, which will get you to Antarctica.

Now, Hawaii, that's a place to dig! Straight down from Hawaii is the exotic land of Botswana, Africa.

I'm sorry to have burst your childish dream of digging to China... Later, I'll destroy your childish ideas concerning Columbus "discovering America," space being a "vacuum," and the more-often-wrong-than-right rule of "i before e except after c."