Many men purchase a Corvette to satisfy their midlife crisis. Rinker Buck? Well, he chose to purchase a team of mules, a covered wagon, and began a many month journey to become the first person to drive the entirety of the Oregon Trail by those means in over a century.

This turned out to be decent reading for an Oregonian, but like the trail itself, it dragged on much longer than comfortable. As such, despite having no job, it took me far too long to finish.

The book teaches quite a bit about wagon travel (it sucked), mules (they’re awesome), Mormons (they’re trying to take over the trail), Indians (they were done wrong), locations on the trail, and the immense hardships faced by those making the great emigration, but unless the subject really fascinates you, you should probably skip this one. Not a bad read by any means, but there are likely better books in the subject and I already have a few hopefuls lined up.