Geographic quirk

Our drive to Asheville to North Carolina at Thanksgiving was 466 miles, and we drove through only two states--Virginia and North Carolina. Our drive to New York for Christmas was half as short (according to Google Maps, exactly 233 miles), but we drove through five states--Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York--plus the District of Columbia, as well as Pennsylvania on the return drive because we had to take a longer way around to bypass traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike.

I'm not sure what that means, except that it provides lots of opportunities for collecting tolls.