13,000 square miles of silence

It may seem impossible and possibly implausible and beyond that, astounding but simultaneously beckoning ... a 13,000 square mile area in which the government discourages the use of instruments that many Americans wouldn't be caught dead without -- cell phones, WiFi and other electronic gadgetry. The radio plays static.

Phone booth in Head Waters, Va.

The National Radio Quiet Zone in West Virginia "aims to protect sensitive radio telescopes at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, as well as a nearby Naval research facility, from man-made interference." Outsiders may be awed, but residents seem to take it all in stride and besides, there are phone booths here and there. Also, they can talk with each other. I assume the same thing happens in northern Maine where cell-phone connections are spotty to non-existent.

How quaint. How backward. How rural. How Henry David Thoreau.

How strangely ... human.