The return to the United States from Canada at International Falls, Minnesota, brought me through the Lake of the Woods, a very scenic drive close to the Great Lakes. I camped a few nights at Voyageurs National Park, a park dedicated to the life of French and Indian fur traders of two hundred years ago. If you believe loneliness means being by oneself, without the company of a lot of other people, then it describes these traders. But, the traders were not lonely. Like Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond, or Ansel Adams at Yosemite, they had things to do and places to go.
Highway Route 50, especially through Nevada, is called “The Loneliest Road in America.” I took up Route 50 near Kansas City, and drove it all the way to Sacramento, California. Along the way, I visited three national parks — Tallgrass Prairie in Kansas, Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado, and Great Basin in Nevada. In terms of the number of people who visit, these places are rightly called the “loneliest.” In respect to what they offer both casual and scientific observers, however, should never be described as singular or lonely. Here, there are prairie-lands that can support vast communities, geologic features that span over 2 billion years, caves and mountain peaks that merit exploration, and of course, some of the best night sky viewing away from the city’s illumination.
See photos taken along America’s “Loneliest Road” via the Menu on the “Driving America’s Loneliest Road” page
As you can tell, this post delves into what it means to be called “lonely.” As I have shown, being called “lonely” may not be such a bad thing after all. I have known people who say they never felt as lonely as they felt being just one in a crowd. In the expanses of nature, and all that can be learned and enjoyed within it, one can never be lonely.