The Final Frontier

I remember while growing up in Wyoming, when we went on walking adventures, trying to step on a spot of earth that no one had ever stepped on before. Partly I believed that there was no place that hadn't felt human feet, but there was a lingering hope in my soul that I could be part of history by walking a path no person had previously walked.
When I was older, somewhere in Siena, Italy, I had a sort of opposite awareness of the multitude of persons who had previously sat where I sat on the Piazza del Campo, laughing and talking with friends. That was a sort of opposing connection with humanity and history where before I looked for a disconnect.

Thinking back though, I wasn't looking to disconnect with the world so much as to expand the reaches of mankind by my exploration. We called them expeditions.