Memoir

With two horses, a dog and a used Gibson guitar a young woman set out in 1973 for a month-long adventure, following trails and back roads deep in Appalachia in southeastern Ohio. A few weeks before, Joy MillerUpton had been a journalism student at Ohio University, but now, with a BS degree in hand, she was taking time off before beginning her writing and photography career. At first riding with her 12-year-old son for a week, then by herself, Joy had time to contemplate the first 31 years of her life.

That journey was the first in a series of horseback adventures Joy and her horses took over the next three decades. You will read about living on the road traveling with horses—sleeping under the stars and sometimes thunderclouds, riding through Bigfoot country, tracing parts of John Hunt Morgan’s ride through Ohio, and riding portions of Underground Railroad routes.

This is a story about a woman raised when becoming a homemaker was the end-game. But Joy pointed her horse in a different direction, and, by her 26th birthday started college and began a journey full of rich experiences.

 

Illustrations by Hannah Sickles

 

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Available in southeastern Ohio where fine books are sold.

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