| Henderson, NV |

Apparently as you start to get a little older, you are potentially more prone to a variety of maladies; including the truly bizarre ones. Such as nerve issues?

Now, initially I wasn’t 100% sure that’s what this stupidity is, but I am pretty adept at typing symptoms into Google and able to read what comes back from that search, and if it walks like a duck, etc., then it’s probably a duck.

In this case the duck’s name seems to be Cervical Radiculopathy.

In less fancy terms, a pinched nerve.

And it’s a bastard.

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So, yesterday morning it finally forced me to seek an opinion on it, and I visited the Kingston Regional Medical Center.

They took some X-Rays and confirmed that a) I do have a spine and b) There’s nothing wrong with it.

And ultimately concurred with my Google self-diagnosis of a pinched nerve(s).

So, Dr. Robert, who shares his name with a Beatles song, ordered no more hiking for at least a couple more days.

And thanks to an injection, some pills and a topical cream, your author, Humpty Dumpty, is for the first time in a week, somewhat back together again.

Also, a brief and deserving shout-out to Leandra at Hand and Stone Massage, who is as good of a conversationalist as she is a masseuse.

Day before last, she gave me my first ever massage and though it didn’t solve my problem, it helped.

Thank you for that and that you for the great conversation.

Zeitgeist, indeed.

While I’m sitting on the bench, I have a couple of bits to fill you all in on.

Starting with…

The fact that the United States of America is a very, very large country.

You can file this under one of those things that you think you know and appreciate. Until you experience it for yourself.

As I crossed over the Mississippi and moved through Arkansas and Oklahoma I really started thinking about this.

Then I hit Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

And then I really started thinking about this.

Each of these three states is large enough in mass to easily be it’s own country, and once you get away from the population centers – of which there are few; especially in New Mexico and Arizona – you’re really struck by just how sparsely populated each really is.

Save for the highway and it’s resulting traffic, you often drive for dozens and dozens of miles and see almost no signs of human habitation.

Indeed I had one of these drives yesterday up I-93 on the way to Kingman, AZ from Phoenix.

In the two and a half or so hours it took, I passed through a couple ‘towns’, a few buildings in Wikieup that were supposedly a ‘town’, and must have blinked and missed the ‘town’ named Nothing, AZ.

An apt name for such a place if there ever was one!

And lest you be oblivious to the desolation and challenges that these high desert towns face, a donation box outside the Wikieup trading post restroom would certainly shake you out of your fog.

You see, I’d been waiting for a bathroom stop for at least 45 minutes or so when I came upon the trading post. So I stopped, did what one does there and noticed the donation box on the way out.

Paraphrased, the sign tacked to it said:

‘We provide these restrooms as a convenience to our customers. When they break down, the nearest plumber is two hours away round-trip, so please consider a donation to help maintain their upkeep’.

Two hours. Yikes.

There have been so many points in the last two weeks or so, when I’m looking out at the horizon and it’s beautifully uninterrupted view for what seems like at least a hundred miles.

Plenty more moments arrive when you’re not staring at empty horizons, but rather you find yourself staring at nothing but mountain after mountain after seemingly endless mountain.

Either way, there’s not much of habitation to stare at, and it comes to mind that this country of 325 million people still has an awful lot of empty space in it.

And for that, I, and all of us, should be very thankful.

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In that US populace are plenty of folks who have chosen to scratch out their existence in some of the most remote, hard-scrabble places our country has to offer.

I’ve driven past numerous human encampments in the proverbial middle of nowhere and found myself simultaneously incredulous and (somewhat) jealous as I wonder what such an existence would be like.

On one hand you certainly don’t have any nosy neighbors to deal with, but on the other you’re never going to just pop down to the corner store to pick up another bottle of ketchup if you ever run out.

Like much of life, there’s pros and cons, I suppose.

How do you wind up living on the ragged edge of civilization?

Were your ancestors pioneers and the property passed down from generation to generation?

Was it a cost savings plan?

Are you anti-social?

Are you just a rugged individualist?

Or is there no reason at all, and that’s just where you happen to live?

I’m deadly curious and it’s my goal as this trip progresses to meet some of these folks and in a non-intrusionary way as possible, talk to some of them about their life choices.

I bet there’s some fascinating conversation to be had there.

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Things I think I think:

Note: For years I was a devoted reader of Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback, and he always signed off that weekly column with a collection of random thoughts / observations / quips / etc. that he’d collected.

They were mostly items that wouldn’t merit paragraphs on their own, but were nonetheless things he’d wanted to include in his postings.

I always enjoyed reading them and I’ve personally collected a lot of these types of things in my travels.

As a nod to a great writer, I appropriated his header for my thoughts as well.

So with that…

1. 75 MPH speed limits are infinitely better than 65 MPH speed limits.

2. Wal-Mart is Wal-Mart. Whether it’s in Williamsville, NY or Kingman, AZ or really any place in between.

3. All sunsets are romantic, but the Western sunset puts the Eastern sunset to shame.

4. This may surprise some of you, but I really enjoy talking to people. No, really, I do.

5. Conversation is a lost art and my experience is that most people lean into it. I spent a good ten minutes talking to a woman last night and all it took to strike up that conversation was me acknowledging her with a ‘Ma’am’, as we both waited for an elevator.

6. The road less traveled is far superior to the road more traveled.

7. Despite the fact that it’s only 7 degrees difference, it turns out that 102 degrees is a helluva lot hotter than 95 degrees.

8. ‘Smart’ phones are making us as a species, dumber. Far, dumber.