I started blogging about walking across the United States by comparing it to assembling a big jigsaw puzzle: you make a little progress day after day, and even though the change from day to day may not look like much, you get the thing done eventually.
I do a big puzzle every year, and this year it was the one pictured here - 5,000 pieces, objects in the solar system and beyond - and as you can see it is now finished. Sometimes it takes me as much as eight months to finish one, but this one was not especially difficult. It has a lot of color, and it also has quite a bit of writing. There were a few solid blue or mostly black areas, but overall it was not bad.
Also, this was the first time I can remember that I got significant help. My brother was here for just three days, but we spent hours working on it, and we added maybe 1,000 pieces between us. So I am done early this year. I have worked into October before.
Going back to my walking, I have been at it almost seven months now, and I am 30 percent done. This walk is more like an 18,000-piece puzzle, which, such things exist, but they require a very big table, and I don't have that sort of space. My 5,000 pieces take up almost all of my assembly space.
This week I have walked a lot like I am supposed to, and my walking led me to finding three morel mushrooms this weekend, which is very cool. Also this week I was walking past a neighbor's house when she needed help picking up some spilled groceries, so I did a good deed and rescued as much of her food as I could.
I am now at Dunmore, Montana, and tomorrow I will reach Crow Agency, close to the Little Bighorn National Monument. After that, the Montana places showing on Google Maps (at a zoom level where I can see them all) are:
- Busby, population 745
- Muddy, population 617
- Lame Deer, population 2,042
- Ashland, population 464
- Epsie. Google Earth photos suggest a population of maybe 5 to 10 people.
- Broadus, population 518.
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