大学英语精读册UnitNine.docVIP

Unit Nine:Journey West TextIn 1976, during Americas bicetennial celebration, a family decided to travel to the American West instead of joining the majority of people that were celebrating on the East Coast. They wanted to follow the trails that the pioneers had made when they began to settle the West. The family was looking forward to making their own discoveries. JOURNEY WESTJim DohertyWe began our trip out West on June 19, 1976, a time when millions of other American families were preparing to crowd into the Bicentennial shrines of the East. We sized up Americas 200th birthday celebration a bit differently. Although the Republic may have been born in the East, it had spent most of its time and energies since then moving west. So we resolved to head in the same direction in 1976, following the old pioneer trails and the famous rivers. Concentrating primarily on Wyoming and Montana, we would explore such legendary mountain ranges as the Big Horns, the Bitterroots and the Swan.There was one problem though, I was sure our four kids -- educated about the West through the movies -- would be disappointed. As an environmental editor, I knew that strip mining was tearing up many scenic areas and that clear-cutting was causing widespread damage in the mountains. I was well aware that draining and damming were making a mess of many rivers and wetlands. The grasslands were overgrazed and coal-burning power were befouling the air. Wildlife was on the run everywhere and tourists were burning the national parks into slums.I was prepared for the worst. But how to prepare the kids?The answer, we decided, was to undertake our journey not just as tourists on a holiday, but as reporters on the trail of the real West. So all of us, from my kids to my wife, pledged to do our homework before we left and to record on the way everything we did, saw, hear, felt or thought.Predictably, we did not uncover any new truths about the West in three short weeks. But there were plenty of s