Tom's Life Bits

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===== Miles to Go synopsis =====

A beautiful, well-written second book in The Walk series, this book is rich in life lessons and character development, two things I love in a novel. Evans’ chapters are short and impacting – it makes you feel like you are zipping through the book (I read it in two days). I like the title and how it is taken from “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost (shown below) – I’ve always loved this poem.

There are really three stories going on here – Alan Christoffersen’s, a woman he meets on the highway names Angel, and Kailamai’s – a young girl running away from her most recent foster home.

Alan is reeling from the untimely death of his wife, McKale, and also the loss of his business and home from a rather unscrupulous business partner. In Spokane, he is recovering from three knife wounds he suffered just outside of town, when he was mugged by three punks but saved by two truckers with a shotgun.

He recuperates in Angel’s apartment and learns about her bout with depression and suicide, and he is able to help her start her life again. The story of their Thanksgiving and Christmas together with Bill, the caretaker and owner who lost his wife recently, and Christine, a college student living in another apartment, is poignant.

Alan has a reconciliation with his father, who comes out to see him and make sure he is ok.

When Spring rolls around, Alan is finally fit enough to continue his walk. He travels from Spokane to upper Idaho (Coeur d’Alene-Kellog-Wallace) where he meets Kailamai (he says her from a bunch of gang-bangers) with his 9mm pistol that his father gave him (good to see some common sense creep in here). She is a run-away from a foster home and has had a terrible life up to this point, but she is the most hopeful person he has ever met. Alan plans it out so that Angel (now Nicole) meets them just before he enters Yellowstone National Park to bring Kailamai back to Spokane with her and enroll her in school.

Alan continues on – alone again. His trek through Wyoming is very boring (see quotes below) – I wonder if they ticked him off some how when he asked for information about their state (or maybe during his own travels?). In any case, it picks up again when he enters South Dakota, and his description of Korczak Ziolkowski and his work on the Crazy Horse monument is extremely interesting (see pp. 310-311).

The ending is very ambiguous - I hate it! He notices an older woman in the hotel lobby who knows him who says “I’ve been looking for you for weeks” and boom, the book is over. Boo!

Summary
Alan Christoffersen, a once-successful advertising executive, wakes one morning to find himself injured, alone, and confined to a hospital bed in Spokane, Washington. Sixteen days earlier, reeling from the sudden loss of his wife, his home, and his business, Alan left everything he knew behind and set off on an extraordinary cross-country journey. Carrying only a backpack, he planned to walk to Key West, the farthest destination on his map. But a vicious roadside stabbing has interrupted Alan’s trek and robbed him of his one source of solace: the ability to walk. Homeless and facing months of difficult recovery, Alan has nowhere to turn—until a mysterious woman enters his life and invites him into her home. Generous and kind, Angel seems almost too good to be true, but all is not as it appears. Alan soon realizes that before he can return to his own journey, he must first help Angel with hers. From one of America’s most beloved and bestselling storytellers comes an astonishing tale of life and death, love and second chances, and why sometimes the best way to heal your own suffering is by helping to heal someone else’s. Inspiring, moving, and full of wisdom, Miles to Go picks up where the bestseller The Walk left off, continuing the unforgettable series about one man’s unrelenting search for hope.

Quotes

This is story of contrasts-about living and dying, hope and despair, pain and healing, and the tenuous, thin places between both extremes where most of us reside. (p. 6)

The sun will rise again. The only uncertainty is whether or not we will rise to greet it. (Prologue)

Sometimes Mother Nature has PMS. (Chapter Four – describing his wedding day)

There are people who come into our lives as welcome as a cool breeze in summer – and last about as long. (Chapter Seven-describing how much Norma, the nurse, helped him)

People aren’t wired to be alone. Even in the stressful population of prison, solitary confinement is still considered a cruel punishment. (Chapter Thirteen-Mom underlined this when she read it)

There can be no job without gratitude. (Chapter Twenty-one)

My father came. No matter what he said, his search for me spoke louder. (Chapter Twenty-two)

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep;
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep.”
-Longfellow (Chapter Twenty-seven)

My mother always said that the shortest path to healing was to heal someone else. (p. 166)

“How’s Seattle?” I asked. “Rain,” she said. (p. 175)

Old friends are memories personified. (Chapter Thirty)

Forgiveness is the key to the heart’s shackles. (Chapter Thirty-four)

I don’t think it as much a human foible as it is a human curse that we cannot understand the beauty of a thing until it is gone. (Chapter Thirty-five)

My father liked to drive at night and I slept for most of the ride home. I still remember the feel and smell of cold vinyl against my face. Somehow I woke in my own bed, the soft white sheets tucked in around me. I miss that. Childhood is magical that way. (p.292)

Nothing clears the mind (nor colon) like an encounter with a grizzly bear. (293)

The Wild West has never been so dull. (p.301)

I’ve known people from Wyoming and I’ve heard tale of its rugged beauty and friendly folksy inhabitants, but honestly, in this part of the state, I didn’t feel it. (p. 303)

Crossing from Wyoming into South Dakota was like the moment Dorothy emerged from her re-located Kansas home in the magical, Technicolor world of Oz. (p. 306)
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