A Walk in the Woods

This book is for the most part about how a guy ( bill bryson) decides to one day go on a hike on the Appalachian Trail that stretches over 2,160 miles. He says he wants to do it to reconnect with nature and the beauty of the American landscape after being out of the country for several years. The trip takes a while to plan out, so the whole time that he is waiting he researches about the AT. Then he explains all the diseases like schistosomiasis, ehrlichiosis, and lymes disease and how horrible each and every one is and chances of getting them. Next he goes on about his fear of bears and he tells a few horror stories about them too. He starts buying his hiking gear which is very expensive because he has to plan out about 6 months of his time. For the most part he sounds very sarcastic because he explains almost all the worst case scenarios you can ever think of and how horrible it will be carrying around a 40 pound pack every single day up hills and mountains. At the same time though he says it giving all the facts and details and statistics on each thing, pointing out obious flaws in the world. Even after talking about all of that he still manages to get one of his very old friends to come on the trip with him, Stephan Katz. So both are in thier late thirties and bill points out right away that neither of them are in good shape for this journey but both willing start to trudge on the trail. After about 2 miles Katz had fallen way behind and Bill had to stop from exhaustion, explaining how just that morning they had talked about how they would walk 8.9 miles by lunch and 16.8 by supper. Then they continue at a much slower pace with little exagerated stories usually coming from Katz and witty humor between the two of them. Not to mention Bill likes to look up all kinds of random things about the trail then he will give you hard facts about these things and then make fun of them and you cant help but think he might be right!