Travels with Reg

Book Review: The Great Northern Express: A Writer's Journey Home by Howard Frank Mosher

"But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love." [1 Corinthians 13:13, NASB]

Easy to say, not as easy to realize. As Howard Frank Mosher takes us on his journey through the three phases of The Great Northern Express, he re-learns the lesson that love is an ongoing process, not a destination. Love of life, of one's work, and of the people that we hold dear are intertwined in ways that we do not always appreciate or comprehend.

Northern Express is not so much a tale of a book tour; like all great journeys the actual reason may be obscured, even to ourselves. It is not a series of momentous discoveries and personal epiphanies. At the simplest level it is the story of a man in a car, traveling across the country to see what he can find. Like John Steinbeck in Travels with Charley in Search of America, Mosher is not really sure what he is looking for, or even sure he will know if he finds it.

The true measure of a road trip is not the things that you see, or the people you meet, or the photos you take. The true measure of a journey is seen in the person that comes back home. The journey does not occur 'out there', it is internal, and personal. Through his series of tales Mosher shows us both sides of the story, allowing us a glimpse of ourselves as he finds his own way home.

Thanks for the ride Harold.