I’m from Des Moines. Someone had to ‘

And once Bill Bryson was old enough, he was gone. De Moyne couldn’t hold him back, but it distracted him. After ten years in England, he returned to the edge of his youth and traveled nearly 14,000 miles in search of the legendary town of Amalgam, such a sunny, elegant place where his youth films were played.
https://artsjc.org/the-lies-that-bind-by-emily-giffin-pdf-download/
Instead, her search led her to Anywhere, the United States; observation strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger shops populated by people who seem to love synthetic fibers. Traveling through the thirty-eight lower provinces, united only in their impeccable dreamy uniformity, he discovered a twice-lost continent; lost himself because he was ruined by greed, corruption, mobile homes and television; went missing because he became a stranger in his country.

The Lost Continent is a classic in travel literature: cheerful, anguished in the stomach, but a soul, and a book that first claimed Bill Bill Bryson as the most beloved writer of his generation..