Open Road

May 1, 2021
In this travelogue, a middle-aged couple takes a road trip through a number of national parks. Having built a successful and happy life on the island of Maui, author Neal and her husband, Mike, were facing life and career milestones, with Neal approaching 50, and Mike about 60. Both were feeling "the gaunt wolf of age...chewing at the backs of our legs." As Mike, a woodworker and photographer, was beginning his recovery from a major health crisis and Neal teetered on the edge of leaving her rewarding but stressful job as a child/adolescent therapist, the two decided to mark their individual transitions with a monthlong road trip through several national parks. They started close to home with a strenuous backpacking trip into a volcanic crater in Maui's Haleakalā National Park. From there, they traveled to the more active lava flows of Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park on Hawaii's Big Island and even further afield to mainland national parks, from the spires and slot canyons of Utah's Bryce Canyon and Zion to the moss-hung forests and rocky beaches of Washington's Olympic National Park. Each landscape inspired them while also providing both physical and emotional challenges. As narrator of the adventure, Neal intersperses her account with reflections on her own upbringing, running wild on the beaches of Kauai as the child of hippie parents, and her work as a "kid whisperer," a therapist for troubled children. The result is a dynamic, engrossing portrait of a woman in midlife on the cusp of a major life decision. The story unfolds neatly as a journey of self-examination, struggles, and joys and leaves the reader with a longing for adventure and an appetite for more of Neal's writing. An absorbing travel narrative about defining and facing the limitations and opportunities of midlife.

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