Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson

Author:Bill Bryson [Bryson, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, United States, Humor, Essays, Science, Nature, Appalachian Trail, United States - General, Travel, Natural history, South, Essays & Travelogues, Bryson, Description and travel, Northeast, Travel - United States, Bill - Journeys - Appalachian Trail, Regional, East South Central, United States - Northeast - General, United States - South - East South Central (General), Bryson; Bill - Journeys - Appalachian Trail, East South Central (AL; KY; MS; TN), Appalachian Trail - Description and travel, Natural history - Appalachian Trail
ISBN: 9780767902526
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
Published: 1999-04-15T23:14:57+00:00

Eighteen miles was a heroic distance for us, but we were filthy and trail-weary and more than ready for a town, and so we plodded on. We reached Front Royal about seven, dead tired, and went to the first motel we came to. It was arrestingly dire, but cheap. The bed sagged, the TV picture jumped as if it were being mercilessly goosed by an electronic component, and my door didn't lock. It pretended to lock, but if you pushed on it from outside with a finger, it popped open. This perplexed me for a moment until I realized that no one could possibly want any of my possessions, so I just pulled it shut and went off to find Katz and go to dinner. We ate at a steakhouse down the street and retired happily to our televisions and beds.

In the morning, I went early to Kmart and bought two complete new sets of clothes-socks, underwear, blue jeans, sneakers, handkerchiefs, and the two liveliest shirts I could find (one with boats and anchors, the other with a famous-monuments-of-Europe motif). I returned to the motel, presented Katz with half--he couldn't have been more thrilled--then went to my room and put on my new attire. We met in the motel parking lot ten minutes later, looking crisp and stylish, and exchanged many flattering comments. With a day to kill, we went for breakfast, had an idle, contented saunter through the modest central business district, poked around in thrift shops for something to do, found a camping store where I bought a replacement hiking stick exactly like the one I had lost, had lunch, and in the afternoon decided naturally to go for a walk. It was, after all, what we did.

We found some railroad tracks, which followed the stately curves of the Shenandoah River. There is nothing more agreeable, more pleasantly summery, than to stroll along railroad tracks in a new shirt. We walked without haste or particular purpose, mountain men on holiday, chatting seamlessly about nothing in particular, stepping aside from time to time to let a freight train lumber past, and generally enjoying the abundant sunshine, the beckoning, infinite gleam of silver track, and the simple pleasure of moving forward on legs that felt tireless. We walked almost till sunset. It was a perfect way to finish.

The following morning we went to breakfast, and then came the three hours of fidgety torture of standing at the edge of a motel drive watching traffic for a particular car filled with beaming, excited, much-missed faces. For weeks and weeks I had tried not to visit that shadowy ache where thoughts of my family lay, but now that they were nearly here-now that I could let my thoughts run free--the anticipation was nearly unbearable.

Well, you can imagine, I'm sure, the joyous reunion scene when they finally arrived-the exuberant hugs, the scatter-gun chatter, the tumble of needlessly but delightfully detailed information about the problems of finding the right interstate exit and correct motel,

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