Summary of Philip Caputo's The Longest Road

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 I had a dream that was triggered by a condition I’ve suffered from my entire life. I would spend my summer vacations with my father, a traveling machinist for the Continental Can Company, who would take me and my mother and sister to visit canning factories in central and northern Wisconsin.

#2 I spoke to my father, who had died the previous year, on the off chance that he could hear me. I told him that I would always remember him, that I would miss him, and that although we’d had some sharp disagreements, I’d never stopped loving him.

#3 I decided to make an epic road trip across North America to see how the America of 2010 was different from the America of 1996.

#4 In geology, a rift is a long, narrow zone where stresses in the earth’s crust are causing it to rupture. In North America, one such formation is the Rio Grande Rift, which is pulling apart at the rate of two millimeters a year.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669358473

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Insights on Philip Caputo's The Longest Road

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I had a dream that was triggered by a condition I’ve suffered from my entire life. I would spend my summer vacations with my father, a traveling machinist for the Continental Can Company, who would take me and my mother and sister to visit canning factories in central and northern Wisconsin.

#2

I spoke to my father, who had died the previous year, on the off chance that he could hear me. I told him that I would always remember him, that I would miss him, and that although we’d had some sharp disagreements, I’d never stopped loving him.

#3

I decided to make an epic road trip across North America to see how the America of 2010 was different from the America of 1996.

#4

In geology, a rift is a long, narrow zone where stresses in the earth’s crust are causing it to rupture. In North America, one such formation is the Rio Grande Rift, which is pulling apart at the rate of two millimeters a year.

#5

I wanted an Airstream, as American as the prairie schooner, its bright aluminum body and rounded lines reminiscent of early racing airplanes. I had begun to consider alternatives to an Airstream when a friend introduced me to Rich Luhr, who lived in Tucson.

#6

I would email Luhr with trailer candidates, and he would judge them based on their condition. Very few were acceptable. I began to despair of finding a Goldilocks Airstream, and I encouraged my own discouragement.

#7

I bought a 2007 Toyota Tundra, a pickup capable of hauling a boxcar, and then a hardtop shell for the truck’s bed to provide a home for the dogs. I met the woman who restored and sold antique Airstreams, Erica Sherwood, in Arizona.

#8

I was baptized into the Airstream world, and the process of towing a trailer was explained to me. I was advised to treat the trailer like a beautiful lady who bruises easily.

#9

I started on a shakedown cruise, heading east on I-10 for the Florida panhandle. I was struggling to lift Sage into the truck when a flock of fat, white domestic ducks passed by. The ducks were going to lure her on until she quit or drowned from exhaustion.

#10

I was reluctant to leave my wife behind, but I knew that the lonesome road would be too lonesome if I was alone with Sage. I asked my wife to join me, if she could swing it with her employer.

#11

I heard a lively radio debate about the city’s plans to