Recent high school graduate, eighteen-year-old L.R. Land and his teacher, Richard Mullins, have spent the previous four years producing plays together. During this time, Mullins has become a mentor and surrogate father to the young man. After quitting his job, Mullins sets out on a journey from North Carolina's Outer Banks to San Francisco's Lands End, much of it on historic Route 66. The young man convinces his teacher to let him come along. During the journey, each learns lessons about friendship, life, and family. The relics of the Mother Road, its scenery, disjointed pavement, and leftover buildings, throw their struggles into relief as they wrestle with hopes, memories, fears, and secrets. The young man yearns for acceptance. His companion, in fragile health and more comfortable with a script than with life, is on a quest to find his own former teacher and lover. Fascinating characters they meet along the way-sidebars in a road atlas of humanity-provide colorful diversions as they interact with the travelers. "Life," according to Judge Learned Hand, "is made up of a series of judgments on insufficient data..." The travelers learn the truth of this statement as each generation attempts to understand the other.