The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts

The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America by Elizabeth Letts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 - My first thought about this book is that I wish my father-in-law was still alive because I think he (and my dad) would both have enjoyed this very much. I wish I could ask them whether they remember hearing about the journey that Annie Wilkins took across America, from Maine to California, in the mid-1950s. They both grew up around horses, and were young men at the time. I think they would have been fascinated by this, as many of the people of America were, at the time.
Annie is 63, when she is given just a few years to live, after being hospitalized for what might have been thought to be TB. She remembers a dream of her mother's, to see the Pacific Ocean, and decides that she has nothing to lose (she knows she can no longer hold on to the farm in Maine, by herself), and manages to save enough money to buy a horse and sets out in November, 1954 to ride across the country with her dog, trusting that strangers will let her sleep in their barns, etc. along the way.
A newspaper gets word of the story and she becomes something of a celebrity, people in the towns she travels through often put her up for a night, or longer, and her horse(s) are always given a place in a stable. The police act as escorts through towns and offer her a place to sleep in the jail, when needed. Overall, people are very kind to her and her animals. In Tennessee, a town gives her a second horse, a Tennessee Walker, to help her along the way.
This was an interesting book, in a simpler time, and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys animals, travel or history.

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