The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America

by Bill Bryson

And Iowans, I am proud to tell you, have the highest literacy rate in the nation: 99.5 percent of grownups there can read.

Now this one puzzles me. How can you 99.5 % of grownup that can read?

The Smoky Mountains themselves were a joy. It was a perfect October morning. The road led steeply up through broad-leaved forests of dappled sunshine, full of paths and streams, and then, higher up, opened out to airy vistas.

Your mind, unable to deal with anything on this scale, just shuts down and for many long moments you are a human vacuum, without speech or breath, but just a deep, inexpressible awe that anything on this earth could be so vast, so beautiful, so silent.