I am submitting two new names to add to the list: Semisopochnoi and Amatignak.
I can hear you saying it. Who?
Semisopochnoi and Amatignak are not a who. They are a what, like Scylla and Charybdis, like Sodom and Gomorrah, like the devil and the deep blue sea, like biscuits and gravy.
(Editor's note. It is only in the United States that biscuits and gravy go together. In the U.K., they most definitely do not, because an English biscuit is not the same thing as an American biscuit. In the U.K., people also call a diaper a napkin, but I don't want to go down that particular rabbit trail today. --RWP)
So what, exactly, are Semisopochnoi and Amatignak?
Semisopochnoi and Amatignak are two islands in the Aleutian archipelago in the state of Alaska. But they are more than that. They have a special relationship, as did Romeo and Juliet and those other famous pairs I named in the opening paragraph.
Amatignak has the distinction of being the westernmost place in the United States (coordinates: 51.270°N, 179.119°W). Semisopochnoi, which lies 71 miles west of Amatignak, on the other side of the 180th meridian, has the distinction of being the easternmost place in the United States (coordinates: 51.960°N, 179.772°E). There are still a few more Aleutian islands in Alaska even farther West than (or, more properly, not as far East as Semisopochnoi. If your mind is not yet boggled, you can read more about the two islands in this article.
So Columbus was right. You can reach east by travelling west. If you heard it here first, you are more than five centuries behind the times.
Perhaps next time we can explore Poppycock, Balderdash, Gobsmacking, and Thor. Are they a law firm in Cincinnati? Are they the names of Hilltophomesteader’s new baby goats? Are they just random words I threw together on a page?
Read my blog long enough and you may find out. Then again, you may not.
