99,999 ... and ... 100,000

I reached 99,999 miles on my 2005 Prius this morning at about 7:20 and just south of the St. Jones River on my way into Dover. I pulled over to take the traditional odometer-graph.

I have to say that I am most impressed with RSmitty, who predicted that I'd hit 99,999 on this very date in the Fun for Math Heads contest on Delaware Liberal back in November. There's no mention there of a prize, but we should all now do that polite little clapping noise your hear in golf broadcasts.

RSmitty used the data about miles per day that I've been tossing into these mileage posts to calculate his remarkable estimate. So here's the updated data: it took me 130 days to drive the 11,111 miles between 88,888 and 99,999. That's 85.5 miles per day, on average. It had been 145 days between 77,777 and 88,888.

I was so pleased with reaching this milestone that I immediately set out to reach 100,000 miles. By carefully driving another mile over the next few minutes, I was able to bring up a sixth digit on my odometer.

So. What should the next milestone be? An additional 11,111 miles from 99,999 would be 111,110 and my particular mania would insist on 111,111. On the other hand, I think 101,010 would look really cool given the way my odometer forms numbers. Based on what it looked like at 91,088, I think it would say "10 10 10."