A significant fraction of thru-hikers reach Katahdin, then turn around and start back to Georgia. They just can't stop walking, which kind of makes you wonder.

Where I grew up, in Des Moines, Iowa, there is hardly any downtown economic activity now. Everybody shops in malls - you don't find a sense of community in malls.

It was an especially wonderful time to be a noisy moron.

To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.

Four times I was honked at for having the temerity to proceed through town without the benefit of metal.

18th century scientists, the French in particular, seldom did things simply if an absurdly demanding alternative was available.

I see litter as part of a long continuum of anti-social behaviour.