To walk across the country is to fall in love with mankind

"To walk across the country is to fall in love with mankind."

So argues Ken Ilgunas, the first walker quoted in a NYTimes news analysis about walking as a spiritual quest (by Kate Murphy). Story looks at a number of examples, the anthropology ("a limnal realm outside of and yet proximal to society"), the possible selfishness, walking for a cause, blogging, and concludes with a cliche. Not sure that was necessary.  

Still, I'm happy to see a free-lancer publish in the NYTimes (which will become rarer with the end of the Green blog, which helped me find more than one story out here in California, and published numerous free-lancers of its own). Interesting that this one didn't mention wilderness or "Wild."

Too far outside the ken of readers of the paper of record, even if "Wild" was a bestseller? 

Nice pics, though.

Here's the story: Walking the country as a spiritual quest.

Mulling it because I'm contemplating a similarly lengthy journey, along the spine of the west, the Sierra High Route, or the Pacific Crest Trail.

Which would be walking the land, I guess, and not the country.