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

by Bill Bryson

She shook her head sharply, as if shooing a particularly tenacious fly. “Fourteen-two.” “No, really, it’s only eight point four.” “Excuse me, but I just walked it. I think I ought to know.” And then suddenly: “God, are those Timberland boots? Mega mistake. How much did you pay for them?” And so it went. Eventually I went off to swill out the bowls and hang the food bag. When I came back, she was fixing her own dinner but still talking away at Katz. “You know what your problem is?” she was saying. “Pardon my French, but you’re too fat.” Katz looked at her in quiet wonder. “Excuse me?” “You’re too fat. You should have lost weight before you came out here. Shoulda done some training, ‘cause you could have like a serious, you know, heart thing out here.” “Heart thing?” “You know, when your heart stops and you like, you know, die.” “Do you mean a heart attack?” “That’s it.” Mary Ellen, it should be noted, was not short on flesh herself, and unwisely at that moment she leaned over to get something from her pack, displaying an expanse of backside on which you could have projected motion pictures for, let us say, an army base. It was an interesting test of Katz’s forbearance. He said nothing but rose to go for a pee, and out of the side of his mouth as he passed me he rendered a certain convenient expletive as three low, dismayed syllables, like the call of a freight train in the night.