It happens often after a get-away: I may have physically returned to hearth and home (and the endless to-do lists that accompany them) but I’m still half-anchored to the places I just visited. In this case, to 47 and 48. That would be New Mexico and Arizona, the 47th and 48th states to enter the union.

I hail from the 14th state, Kentucky (1792), so to contemplate the 47th and 48th, the last of the continental additions, is to be in awe of how recently they were admitted — only a month apart, in 1912. My parents honeymooned in the American West only four decades later.

Do these states feel new? Not really. They feel old, even timeless. The parts of them we visited were beautifully remote. The closest gas station was 25 miles away, the nearest grocery store double that.

Lack of services means neighbors rely on each other. That, plus the wide-openness of their spaces and the darkness of their skies is a magnet for birders and researchers and people who chafe at boundaries. I admire the hardy souls who make 47 and 48 their home. I don’t think I could.