Editor’s Note: For maximum understandability, please first read this article’s contextual prerequisite: Where The Buffalo Roamed.

In the latest update to our “distance to McDonald’s” map, a lone restaurant has winked out of the wide-open spaces of northeastern California:

See the westernmost gap, a few hundred miles inland from the Pacific? It was there.

Did our missing McDonald’s go down in a flaming river of fry grease? Succumb to a local rancher’s beef and run off to Vegas to get married? Or was it a phantom data point – as the kids say, a glitch in the McMatrix? We may never know for certain.

However, we have confirmed that a grand total of zero (0) Micky Dee’s currently exist near the location in question, where instead, a 150×200-mile swath of McNothingness has opened up and swallowed the arid confluence of California, Oregon, and Nevada.

So, South Dakota? I know you’re strong – but please, grab a chair and sit down for a minute…

Because per our calculations, the winds of McDistance have shifted – from your lovely rolling grasslands to the dusty Western outback. There, in the high desert of northwestern Nevada, you’ll find antelope, wild horses, and the Lower-48′s new-and-improved McFarthest Spot: a patch of sage and soil that is 115 miles away, as the crow flies, from the nearest McDonald’s!

From the air, it looks fairly nondescript, but certainly, vegan treasures must lie hidden beneath the shrubs. Soon, I’ll dispatch an expeditionary team to exploit them, and by September’s end, barring an early snow, all shall be revealed!

Update #1: A Visit To The McFarthest Spot.

Update #2: The McFarthest Spot has moved!

Many thanks to Aggdata for supplying the geolocated restaurant information that made this article possible.