What is your favorite national park?

[LavCat]

Straying off topic, I was entranced by Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. Sadly, I had never even heard of the Appalachian Trail until I read that.

(And I only picked it up because I love his writing. :wub: I am flying through a re-read of The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid at the moment.)

I've been on a section of the trail in New Jersey, near the New York border. Just short hikes however. I used to belong to a folk music society, and we would get together twice a year for a long weekend at a Y camp on a lake that adjoined the trail. It was beautiful, and I learned what to do when you see a bear. The food was good. Can't say much for sleep.

Unfortunately I can't think of the Appalachian Trail without remembering the book Eight Bullets, by Claudia Brenner. They were on a section of the trail in Pennsylvania:

http://www.amazon.com/Eight-Bullets-Surviv...e/dp/1563410559

The first bullet: When the first bullet hit me, my arm exploded. My brain could not make the connections fast enough to realize I had been shot. I saw a lot of blood on the green tarp on which we lay and thought for a split second about earthquakes and volcanoes. But they don't make you bleed. Rebecca knew. She asked me where I had been shot. We had encountered a stranger earlier that day who had a gun. We both knew who was shooting at us. Perhaps a second passed.

The second bullet: When the second bullet hit my neck I started to scream with all my strength. Somehow the second bullet was even more unbelievable than the first.

The third bullet: The third bullet came and I now know hit the other side of my neck. By then I had lost track of what was happening or where we were except that I was in great danger and it was not stopping.

The fourth bullet: I now know a forth bullet hit me in the face. Rebecca told me to get down, close to the ground.

The fifth bullet: The fifth bullet hit the top of my head. I believe Rebecca saw that even lying flat I was vulnerable and told me to run behind a tree.

The sixth bullet: The sixth bullet hit Rebecca in the back of the head as she rose to run for the tree.

The seventh bullet: The seventh bullet hit Rebecca's back as she ran. It exploded her liver and caused her to die.

The eighth bullet missed.