My personal not-good reason for driving the Dalton was the TV show “The Wire.” In early June, my girlfriend, Cheyne, left for her own adventure traveling in Europe for the summer, and in her absence, I decided I would catch up on what Netflix had to offer. But when I sat down to watch the show, something went wrong. I was badly distracted; I couldn’t even make it through the credit sequence. So I reached for a book: same thing — I found I couldn’t read. My brain, it seemed, was congested with a thought-dispersing ooze that stymied every effort at attention.

When I tried to diagnose my condition, it suddenly occurred to me that I was very much alone. Though I had been married and was now in a relationship — albeit at a distance for a season — it came to me with a nauseating thump that, aside from a few weeks here and there, I had not been on my own in nearly 20 years.

This was an unsettling epiphany. But as it passed, I realized that, much as with vaccines, sometimes the poison in one’s life can also be the cure. So at home in Brooklyn I sat at my laptop and Googled the words “loneliest road in America.” After finding several links for U.S. 50 in Nevada, which I had already driven, I saw one for the Dalton. I clicked the link and found a passage reading: “There are only three very sparsely populated towns along the entire route — Coldfoot, Wiseman and Deadhorse. So it’s probably wise to stock up on food and gas.”

Two months later I landed in Alaska. I rented a custom-rigged RAV 4 with triple-tread tires and a CB radio, filled the tank to capacity, checked the brakes and oil, and then the next morning drove due north from Fairbanks toward the Dalton. All that I had with me was a bag of clothes, some water, cheese and trail mix, and a vague belief that if I was alone, it might as well be very alone, and on the road.

After lunch in Yukon River I turned on my radio. The experiment failed. The little digital numbers churned four times through the FM dial then finally caught on 88.3, a contemporary Christian station out of Fairbanks. For half-a-minute, I was treated to a tune called “Trust in Jesus” (“Blessed redeemer/My Lord forever”), then all trace of human voice was gone.