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

One of my fascinations is journey stories: Peter Jenkins’ A Walk Across America and The Walk West, Robin Graham’s The Boy Who Sailed ‘Round the World (aka Dove), Walking to Listen by Andrew Forsthoefel, Bold Spirit by Linda Lawrence Hunt, just to name a few that I’ve read and enjoyed. The Ride of Her Life is another entry in the “journey across America” genre, this time by horse.

Annie was 62 years old in 1954 when she decided to leave her Maine hometown of Minot and travel by horseback to California. She didn’t know where she was going in California; nor did she have a route picked out for getting there. She didn’t have a roadmap. She didn’t have a plan for what she would do when she got to California either. She had very little money, and her horse, a Maine trotter gelding named Tarzan, was at least as old (as horses age) as Annie herself. Annie Wilkins also had no family, no children, and no real ties to the town of Minot where she spent most of her life up until the age of 62. Her farm had just been taken from her in lieu of back taxes.

So she decided to ride Tarzan across the country to California and figured that by the time she reached the Pacific she would be almost old enough to draw from that new government program, Social Security, if she didn’t die on the way. Her Maine doctor had found a spot on her lungs that might have been cancer or tuberculosis, and he figured she had only a couple years to live. What better way to spend those years than as a tramp, which is what Annie decided to call herself, “The Last of the Saddle Tramps” or “The Tramp of Fate.”

I liked this book partly because Annie was about my age when she set out on her journey. I could never ride or walk across the country. I can barely walk around the block without stumbling or breathing hard, and I’ve never ridden a horse. But I do admire Annie’s tenacious spirit, and I would like to emulate her in some ways.

I also enjoyed all the extra information added by the author, Elizabeth Letts. Ms. Letts did a phenomenal amount of research writing this book. A lot of the book is based on Annie’s memoir, written with co-author Mina Titus Sawyer, called Last of the Saddle Tramps. However, Ms. Letts also traveled to all of the places where Annie stopped, found the newspaper articles that were written about her ride in local and national newspapers, and interviewed the few people who are still living and remember Annie coming through or staying in their neighborhoods and homes.

The book is just fascinating. Annie travelled through snow and ice and heat and desert and mountains and over rivers. And she found plenty of friendly strangers who cared for her along the way. She met Andrew Wyeth, Governor Robert Smylie of Idaho, Art Linkletter, and countless less famous folks who were all treated with the same friendly, unassuming, appreciative air by Annie, The Last of the Saddle Tramps.