From Maine's northernmost tip to California's Monterey Peninsula, a journey across AmericaJohn Steinbeck set off at the age of fifty-eight to rediscover the nation he had been writing about for so many years with the intention of hearing the voice of the real America, smelling the grass and the trees, seeing the colours and the light. Steinbeck travels on highways and backroads with his French poodle Charley, has meals with truckers, sees bears in Yellowstone, and runs into old friends in San Francisco. He ponders the American character, racial animosity, the specific type of loneliness he encounters almost everywhere in America, and the unexpected kindness of complete strangers as he travels.