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THG POLLO^mG IS flH GHTRflCT PROm BILL BRGSOn'S TRflUGL BOOR
THG LOST COnTinGHT. HGRG, BRLJSOn DGSCRIBGS fl UISIT
I
TO THG GRATID CflnHOn in THG LiniTGD STflTGS, UJHflT fi SIGHT
By Bill Bryson
1 The Grand Canyon was the one vivid experience from my childhood
I that I could hope to recapture and I had been looking forward to it for
| many days. By the time I reached the entrance to the Grand Canyon
| National Park, and paid the $5 admission, snow was dropping heavily
| again, thick white flakes so big that their undersides carried shadows.
| 2 The road through the park followed the southern lip of the canyon
| for thirty miles. Two or three times, I stopped in lay-bys and went
| to the edge to peer hopefully into the silent murk, knowing that
| the canyon was ont there, just beyond my nose, but I couldn't see
| anything. The fog was everywhere-threaded among the trees, adrift
| on the roadsides, rising steamily off the pavement. It was so thick I
| could kick holes in it. Glumly I drove on to the Grand Canyon Village,
| where there was a visitohs centre and a rustic hôtel and a scattering
| of administrative buildings. There were lots of tour buses and
| recreational vehicles in the parking lots and people hanging around
| in entranceways or picking their way through the slushy snow, going
| from one building to another.
| 3 I went and had an overpriced cup of coffee in the hôtel cafétéria and
| felt damp and dispirited. I had really been looking forward to the
| Grand Canyon. I sat by the window and bleakly watched the snow
| pile up.
| 4 Afterwards I trudged towards the visitohs centre, perhaps 200
1 yards away, but before I got there I came across a snow-splattered sign
THG POLLO^mG IS flH GHTRflCT PROm BILL BRGSOn'S TRflUGL BOOR
THG LOST COnTinGHT. HGRG, BRLJSOn DGSCRIBGS fl UISIT
I
TO THG GRATID CflnHOn in THG LiniTGD STflTGS, UJHflT fi SIGHT
By Bill Bryson
1 The Grand Canyon was the one vivid experience from my childhood
I that I could hope to recapture and I had been looking forward to it for
| many days. By the time I reached the entrance to the Grand Canyon
| National Park, and paid the $5 admission, snow was dropping heavily
| again, thick white flakes so big that their undersides carried shadows.
| 2 The road through the park followed the southern lip of the canyon
| for thirty miles. Two or three times, I stopped in lay-bys and went
| to the edge to peer hopefully into the silent murk, knowing that
| the canyon was ont there, just beyond my nose, but I couldn't see
| anything. The fog was everywhere-threaded among the trees, adrift
| on the roadsides, rising steamily off the pavement. It was so thick I
| could kick holes in it. Glumly I drove on to the Grand Canyon Village,
| where there was a visitohs centre and a rustic hôtel and a scattering
| of administrative buildings. There were lots of tour buses and
| recreational vehicles in the parking lots and people hanging around
| in entranceways or picking their way through the slushy snow, going
| from one building to another.
| 3 I went and had an overpriced cup of coffee in the hôtel cafétéria and
| felt damp and dispirited. I had really been looking forward to the
| Grand Canyon. I sat by the window and bleakly watched the snow
| pile up.
| 4 Afterwards I trudged towards the visitohs centre, perhaps 200
1 yards away, but before I got there I came across a snow-splattered sign