10. Are the best things free

the suffix –est is heavily present in our thoughts, our literature, our education, our lives. As is the case with “most” and “only.” And a good part of this particular trip considers the best, the largest, the tallest, the oldest, the monumental, the first, and how we choose to label our landscape.

The Natural world is without exception. Any pamphlet, catalog, documentary, or book celebrating a natural presence will fine-tune a manner of saying -est, the only, or the most. It’s not that the mundane is less beautiful or charming, it's that many forget to notice it. Or maybe the mundane is easier to embrace once the pinnacles have been acknowledged? In any case, a good number of the pinnacles in the U.S. have asphalt poured right up to them which invokes the $ to pour right out of them.

Arizona has the worlds largest canyon, the largest collection of big game kills, the largest contiguous ponderosa pine forest in the continental U.S., the largest cacti, the world's largest solar plant...

And truly, anything can be unique if the wording is right. A mountain can be the tallest in Arizona/the tallest in the U.S/the tallest in the world, a twine ball can be the largest twine ball in the world/the largest twine ball in the world "created by one man" and so on.