Around the world in 13 days, 8 hours, 33 minutes. Nevada says: Meh.

I don't know if this has gotten much press outside the CA/NV area, but the disappearance of adventurer Steve Fossett has certainly been in the headlines a bit here lately. He went out for a short flight in a small aircraft from a ranch somewhere south of Reno on the 3rd and hasn't been heard from since.

The only reason I bring this up here is because I'm fascinated by some of the numbers I've been reading associated to this story. All sorts of people, including the Civil Air Patrol, are scouring the mountains and desert basins within a certain radius of his planned flight path, and there's still no sign of him or his plane. But they have discovered 6 - 8 other wreck sites apparently heretofore unknown. And according to the NTSB, there have been 340 plane crashes in Nevada in the last 10 years alone, while another 150 planes have gone missing, according to the Civil Air Patrol.

It's just sort of jarring when you're used to feeling like nothing can go unnoticed in the world today with all the crazy technology available and the reduction in privacy and the wiretapping and Google peering in your windows; feeling fairly certain that there's very little mystery left.
When the truth is, there are still parts of the country that are so remote, so hard to reach, so inhospitable, that a famous person in an airplane can just vanish and never be found.

That's oddly kind of comforting, really.
Unless you're Mr. Fossett, of course.
Or anyone who was in any of the other 150 planes. Or have any intention of flying solo out over the Sierra into basin & range country.