The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of A Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America by Elizabeth Letts
In 1954, twice divorced sixty-three-year-old Annie Wilkins was broke and homeless. The bank took her Maine farm, and her physician gave her two years to live. Rather than check into the county charity home, Annie decided to see the Pacific Ocean before she dies. So she scraped together enough money for a beat-up horse named Tarzan and along with her dog, Depeche Toi, the three rode off in November –without a map– for the west coast.
This goes about as well as you might expect, but Annie got lucky time and time again through the kindness of strangers. Eventually her trek attracted the attention of the media (newspapers!), and citizens and celebrities across the country followed her progress.
A remarkable road trip and a glimpse of the post war transformation of America’s landscape.
(Annie died at age eighty-eight.)