Lynda Rutledge · 2021 · road

Lynda Rutledge's 2021 novel, based on a true story. In 1938 two giraffes survive a hurricane at sea and arrive in New York, bound for the brand-new San Diego Zoo. A young Dust Bowl drifter, Woodrow Wilson Nickel, talks his way into driving them clear across the country, and the twelve-day journey down the old highways becomes the making of him. The route runs coast to coast, New York to California.

1. 1
   New York

   Two giraffes, survivors of a hurricane that nearly sank their ship, are unloaded onto a New York dock, and a penniless young Dust Bowl orphan named Woody bluffs his way into the job of driving them west.

2. 2
   Shenandoah Valley

   South and west along the old Lee Highway, through the Blue Ridge and the Shenandoah, the giraffes' heads swaying above the trees as crowds gather at every stop.

3. 3
   Memphis

   Across the rivers and small towns of the South, dodging a circus man who wants the animals and the Depression hardship pressing in on every side.

4. 4
   Texas

   Out onto the wide Texas plains, Woody and the old zoo man Riley Jones nursing the giraffes through heat and breakdown and the long straight roads.

5. 5
   Arizona

   Into the deserts of the Southwest, the strangest cargo in America rolling on toward the coast under the enormous sky.

6. 6
   San Diego

   At last to San Diego and its new zoo, where the giraffes find a home and Woody, against all odds, finds one too.