A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

by Bill Bryson

I have long known that it is part of God’s plan for me to spend a little time with each of the most stupid people on earth, and Mary Ellen was proof that even in the Appalachian woods I would not be spared.

Life takes on a neat simplicity, too. Time ceases to have any meaning. When it is dark, you go to bed, and when it is light again you get up, and everything in between is just in between. It’s quite wonderful, really.

(reflecting on the curious fact that people who go into hamburger management always look as if their mother slept with Goofy),

“They’re not clean animals, you know, no matter how attractive they may look after a month on the trail. And don’t forget we’re not in Tennessee anymore. It’s probably not even legal here—at least not without a note from the

they aint serious right

up to thirty miles a day. It

In America, alas, beauty has become something you drive to, and nature an either/or proposition—either you ruthlessly subjugate it, as at Tocks Dam and a million other places, or you deify it, treat it as something holy and remote, a thing apart, as along the Appalachian Trail.

I didn’t suppose he’d be able to do much useful surgery up there, but if I fell and broke my back at least I’d know the Latin names for what was wrong with me.

America was entering the age not just of the automobile but of the retarded attention span.

“It was heavy.” “Of course it’s heavy. Water’s always heavy. But it is also kind of vital, wouldn’t you say?” He gave me a helpless look. “I just had to get rid of some weight. I was desperate.” “No, you were stupid.” “Yeah, that too,” he agreed.

Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old. That’s all there is to it.