ONE STRANDED BUS AND A POND || BY JOHN BALZAR || SUMMARY || SOLVED EXERCISE ||

"One Stranded Bus and a Pond" is a chapter about a unique travel experience in Alaska. The story starts with the author, John Balzar, meeting a man on a packaged tour who is disappointed that he hasn't truly experienced anything new, despite having seen much of Alaska's beautiful landscapes
#summary
An unhappy man complained to the author that he had been in Alaska
for a week but hadn’t seen anything new. What he meant was that all
the landscape he had seen through his binoculars were already
familiar to him from TV or videos he had watched. The man wasn’t
happy despite having visited the Fjords of Alaska and the Denali
National Park.
The author narrates his experience of travelling from Anchorage to
write an article for a newspaper. On his way, he saw that a bus that
had broken down and a dozen stranded tourists. The author found the
rest of the tourists sitting at the edge of a pond in the forest nearby.
The landscape of ponds and trees was not unfamiliar. The only
extraordinary thing was that the tourists were trapped because of a
planned itinerary. They had bought a tour package according to which
everything was scheduled. They were filled with anticipation and
excitement.
The author waited with the tourists and watched the birds and
beavers. They felt the calm after the chaotic adventure. The author
was lost in the silence and calm of nature. A lot of �me passed.
The author decided to go back to his car and drive away. He concluded
that seeing a new place is not the same as experiencing it. The tourists
who take a planned package have to follow the same schedule, and
they seldom get to experience any adventure.
Whereas, the tourists, that the author met on his way, had got the
opportunity of stepping down from the bus and experiencing the
surroundings and the nature. The most special thing was that the
pond that the tourists were sitting beside was not even on the map.
So, it was a novel experience for the tourists.
#answerkey
#englishspeaking