The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America (Bryson Book 12)

by Bill Bryson

of mica glittered in the rolling road. And here and there in the distance mighty grain elevators,

square were of the cereal box architecture favoured

who has just loaded six gallons of coffee into his

were clearings on the hillsides where farmhouses

One of them said ‘President

merely gone to sleep. It too was excellent. Written

with twin Gothic spires, and around it stood 200-year-old

shutters that were still clearly used. I did not

The business district in Savannah was

old movie-house, Weis’s, but it was shut. Downtown

alas, alas. You are always reading how buoyant the movie industry is in America, but all the theatres now

like one of the Martians in It Came From Outer

drove along what appeared on my map to be a meandering coast road, but was in fact

the look of it. This was only the fourth time I

happen in America. Wealthy children in America

in the $3,000 treehouse that daddy had

breed – and a largely demented

The Independent in London, put me on to the Melungeon story when

he heard that I was going to that

part of the world, and ...

steeply down to a valley of rolling farms spread out along a lazy river.

I drove on to Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home for most of his life. Washington

seen a story pertaining to it in the

led to an excellent local joke. Q: What is the difference between Bud Dwyer and Bud Lite? A: Bud Lite has a head on it. Yet for all its incompetence and criminality, Philadelphia is a likeable place. For one thing, unlike Washington, it feels like a big city.

outside. That is what I did now.

to the offices of the Philadelphia Inquirer,

old friend from Des Moines,

– grubby, full of junk, littered with

Mt Airy was out in the Germantown section

was quite capable of doing towards

when you visit relatives – ate their food, used their bathtub, washing-machine

radiation suit with me next time I came

choking the roads into town. Everyone

as the driver gropes for a dropped

check out the stars. Their children

borrow a dollar. That knocked me out.

They imagine him trampling over Florida,

have been a consequence of having

but the houses were simply breathtaking. They are some of the grandest,

Queen’s sitting-room. It was all velvety furniture and half-eaten boxes of Milk Tray chocolates.