Blue Highways: A Journey into America

by William Least Heat-Moon

He pulled up and pointed. “There’s the sight of sights in Crisfield.” “Where?” “Right there. The pyramid. An exact scale model of the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Cairo, Egypt. Orientated exactly the same. On the twenty-first of December, the tip of the shadow falls at the same compass point just like in Egypt—except for a small difference caused by latitude.” The Great Pyramid of Crisfield was six feet three inches high—not as tall as an NBA guard. Goldsmith and his sons had designed and built the poured concrete monument to commemorate the national bicentennial; inside they had placed photographs, Nanticoke arrowheads, phonograph records, and other items. “When they open it in twenty seventy-six, it just might contain the last ’forty-seven Mercury outboard motor on earth.” “I’d think a big concrete oystershell would make an appropriate time capsule here,” I said. “Hollow inside and the way they clamp shut so tight.” Goldsmith was floored. “A reglar arster’s ugly, but a six-foot arster?”