As Boston-area high school students in 1993, three friends felt more like numbers in an increasingly crowded, busy world. They knew the Massachusetts Turnpike was just the eastern end of a cross-country highway, and they dreamed of driving an 18-wheeler westward in search of freedom.

They remained friends. In summer 2000, two of them--including the author--fulfilled the dream while a third stayed home with his new wife and child. This book closely follows the author's journal of riding for a month in the “land freighter.”

His experience explores the conflict between the freedom of the road and the commitment of home, with a modern-day American definition of “home.” The book reveals America's post-millenium culture as it appears on the nation's long highways. It challenges readers to question the value of worldly commitments, and exposes addiction to the freedom of the road.

While the truck driver embodies freedom, and the stay-home father embraces commitment, the author leaves for the journey having tasted both. Seated every day in front of "The Real Life Channel," he journals personal and cultural thoughts on a quest for balance between the two.