On the Trail of the Pony Express (American West)
"Ellis sets out along the old Pony Express trail on foot, carrying a backpack and looking for rides and friendship along the way. Without a horse or relief riders, the trip takes Ellis three months rather than the ten days advertised by the nineteenth-century mail delivery company. Musing both about the past and present, Ellis travels with a wagon for a spell, sleeps in a homeless shelter another night, and celebrates his arrival in California with a slice of pizza. Written in the present tense from diary entries, the story is full of a sense of discovery."-Booklist "[The author] ... Strikes out on his own and meets a variety of fellow travelers-a poet-bartender; wilting 'flower children'; a young, pregnant Austrian woman with whom he has a brief affair; and, perhaps most divertingly, 'the Rabbit Man,' a gentle semi-recluse who's addicted to Eskimo Pies and who's been holed up in a Kansas storm cellar."-Kirkus