State by State

I still cannot believe our luck: we won the lottery to visit the Wave. Or to be excruciatingly specific: a friend won it and let us join them. Up to 64 people are allowed to hike the Wave each day. For a long time the Wave used to be visited only by people living in its vicinity. Occasionally a tourist would hear about it in a whispered conversation at a local bar. One of those outsiders turned to be Gogol Lobmayr, a German documentary filmmaker looking for interesting images to include in the Fascinating Nature 1996, a nonverbal landscape documentary. And that was the end of the secret; nowadays the Wave is so famous that, besides its own Wikipedia page, there are entire websites devoted solely to all things necessary to visit it from securing the permit to taking perfect photos.

Small talk in Big Sky, Montana goes like that: The third time I hear the admiration in my interlocutor voice my curiosity is piqued: which aspect of Ted Turner biography grants him such notoriety in the Treasure State? Is it his marriage to Jane Fonda? The third one for both of them and neither remarried after their divorce in 2001. She is a famous actress, who looks more striking with each passing year but I doubt her fame is what distinguishes Ted Turner in the Big Sky Country.

We all strive to accomplish something. Something to be proud of. Something to casually mention in a mixed company and register a gleam of admiration, or a nod of respect. Something, anything. Those are my thoughts as I sit on top of Mount Katahdin contemplating the sign marking the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. It's just a nice moment on a day hike for me, but for some it's the end of 2,200 miles journey. As curious as I am about this almost mystical accomplishment alas, there aren't any thru-hikers in sight so I don't get the chance to ask.