"Porter Ellis once believed he would be a famous painter - "the emerging Bruce Springsteen of the art world." Now, after a disappointing decade of eking out a living as a graphic designer and barely tolerating the cramped apartment in Pittsburgh that he and his family call home, Porter enters full crisis when his wife, Lucy, dies of breast cancer.

Unable to face his grief or deal with Lucy's parents - and seeing his future as a straitjacket of mounting responsibilities and regret - Porter impulsively trades in Lucy's car for a run-down hippie-mobile camper. Then, risking his job and his relationship with his distraught in-laws, he literally sneaks out of town one morning with twelve-year-old Kaylie and eight-year-old Ben and heads west on a trip that he hopes will help mend their broken hearts.

The destination is Rocky Mountain National Park, but the journey quickly veers away from its intended route." "Porter soon finds himself swept up in events and relationships that plunge him into an exploration of choices made years earlier that derailed his dreams and led him to this point of profound longing and confusion in his life."--BOOK JACKET.