A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (Official Guides to the Appalachian Trail)
by
Bill Bryson
Amazon Description:
Bill Bryson has made a living out of traveling and then writing about it. In The Lost Continent he re-created the road trips of his childhood; in Neither Here nor There he retraced the route he followed as a young backpacker traversing Europe. When this American transplant to Britain decided to return home, he made a farewell walking tour of the British countryside and produced Notes from a Small Island. Once back on American soil and safely settled in New Hampshire, Bryson once again hears the siren call of the open road--only this time it's a trail. The Appalachian Trail, to be exact. In A Walk in the Woods Bill Bryson tackles what is, for him, an entirely new subject: the American wilderness. Accompanied only by his old college buddy Stephen Katz, Bryson starts out one March morning in north Georgia, intending to walk the entire 2,100 miles to trail's end atop Maine's Mount Katahdin. If nothing else, A Walk in the Woods is proof positive that the journey is the destination. As Bryson and Katz haul their out-of-shape, middle-aged butts over hill and dale, the reader is treated to both a very funny personal memoir and a delightful chronicle of the trail, the people who created it, and the places it passes through. Whether you plan to make a trip like this one yourself one day or only care to read about it, A Walk in the Woods is a great way to spend an afternoon. --Alix Wilber
Added on: Saturday, July 22 2006
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January 2008 - I got the book from the Eagle Valley Library District (EVLD), reading it right now (since January 20. 2008). I ws astonished to find a mistake in this book. Bryson wrote (about his visit in Centralia, PA) :::
“I'm bound to say, the smartest place in North Ameica to oneself.” …. “Who knows how crazy these peaple might be after three decades of living on top of an inferno and breathing head-lightening quantities of CO2 (carbon dioxide) or …..”
So far I know (and found proof for CO2 and CO at Wikipedia)
CO2 = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide
Carbon dioxide (chemical formula: CO2) is a chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom. It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure and exists in Earth's atmosphere in this state. It is currently at a globally averaged concentration of approximately 383 ppm by volume in the Earth's atmosphere,[1] although this varies both by location and time. Carbon dioxide is an important greenhouse gas because it transmits visible light but absorbs strongly in the infrared.
CO_ = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide
Carbon monoxide, with the chemical formula CO, is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas. It is the product of the partial combustion of carbon-containing compounds, notably in internal-combustion engines.