Dunno, but 13 hours is not that much really. I can drive for more than 13 hours straight, in Italy, without going in circles, staying on the highway, traveling between two region capitals and not counting the islands. And it's Italy, not exactly the biggest country in the world. Or even in Europe.
Normally the good jokes are also somewhat smart, even though they are not "serious". A joke about Texas being big is not very smart, IMHO. Is also not very original, as it's not the first one I've seen in this vein. And above all, it's specially stupid to end it with a remark about "The European mind cannot comprehend this", because Europeans know a lot more about the US than the US people know about Europe.
IOW, it's not that it's struck a nerve, it's that it was legit bad.
PS: Oh, and, the fact that it appeals to Europeans, it seems like it appeals on Europe as a whole, which makes it doubly stupid, because then individual members of the EU/continent are like USA states, and then each member/state has routes as long as the one in the original meme.
I never said it was a good joke... smh. Looks like its easy to trigger the Europeans nowadays. I'm assuming you're European; could be wrong here. Please correct me if so.