Cyndee Baumgartner

Riding West Cyndee Baumgartner

Why would a young couple with two children, age three and five, embark upon a four-month horseback trip from their Wisconsin home to the Rocky Mountains? Was it a lark, an adventure, a "slow-cation," or a journey of discovery? (Spoiler alert: It was all of those things.) How did they cope with the dangers, uncertainties, and hardships of life on the road? How did they relate to strangers along the way, with one another, and with their private feelings? What did they learn? Answers to those "big" questions are found in details of the daily journals Harvey and Cyndee Baumgartner recorded during that 1983 cross-country trip. Horse lovers, students of human nature, and anyone who longs to escape the 21st century "rat race" will relish the honest, profound expressions of faith, trust, and love in these journals. Handwritten by flashlight at the end of days of 100-degree heat, torrential rains, spooked horses, injured kids, and empty stomachs, the entries also reveal the travelers' frustrations and doubts. In the end, however, the Baumgartners survived the journey and grew individually and as a family. Guided by topographical maps in those pre-GPS days, person-to-person communication in those pre-cellphone days, intuition, and the kindness of strangers, they reached their destination and found their "heaven on earth."