FOX News: NWA Flight Had No Contact for 3 Hours

Okay, I'm trying to understand how this happened. Previous reports stated that the period of NORDO was only an hour or so. New reports say 3 hours. It just isn't believable that a professional pilot would not contact ATC for that length of time.

The other day I flew from Kansas to Washington, a three hour flight or so, in the very early morning. All through Kansas City ARTCC, Denver ARTCC, and SLC ARTCC it felt like we were the only ones on the radio. The only time we heard from ATC was on check-in and hand-off. It made me uncomfortable after 5-10 minutes after check-in and not hearing any other random radio calls. Invariably, as my comfort level was exceeded the controller would hand us off to the next sector.

How can someone go from California (I think) to Minnesota without talking to ATC?