Postman Pete has a pedometer to count his steps. The pedometer records up to $99999$ steps, then flips over to $00000$ on the next step. Pete plans to determine his mileage for a year. On January $1$ Pete sets the pedometer to $00000$. During the year, the pedometer flips from $99999$ to $00000$ forty-four times. On December $31$ the pedometer reads $50000$. Pete takes $1800$ steps per mile. Which of the following is closest to the number of miles Pete walked during the year?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 2500 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 3000 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 3500 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 4000 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 4500$
Every time the pedometer flips, Pete has walked $100,000$ steps. Therefore, Pete has walked a total of $100,000 \cdot 44 + 50,000 = 4,450,000$ steps, which is $4,450,000/1,800 = 2472.2$ miles, which is the closest to the answer choice $\boxed{A}$.