Annie collapses during a blizzard while doing farm chores and is rushed to the hospital by neighbors.

Doctors tell Annie she has tuberculosis or lung cancer and give her two to four years to live.

Annie harvests a successful cucumber crop but earns too little to pay her land taxes and save the farm.

Annie purchases a gentle retired racehorse named Tarzan and spends two weeks packing for her journey.

Annie departs Minot, Maine on horseback with her dog Depeche Toi and only $32 in her pocket.

A farmer delivers Annie to a police station for the night, where a journalist discovers her story and interviews her.

Annie appears on a local television broadcast in Manchester, New Hampshire, amazed to see herself on camera.

A truck clips Annie and Tarzan on an icy road near Bear Mountain, injuring them both.

A Kentucky farming couple surprises Annie by gifting her an expensive, well-trained horse named Rex.

A storm breaks Annie's horses loose from a field in Arkansas, and they go missing overnight.

Annie rides Tarzan, Rex, and Depeche Toi through Cheyenne's Frontier Days parade before thousands of spectators.

A flash flood sweeps through Annie's campsite in Wyoming's Red Desert, knocking her and her dog off their feet.

Stranded by approaching winter, Annie accepts a trucker's offer of a ride through the Sierra Nevada into California.

Rex develops tetanus after a nail injures his hoof and, despite veterinary care, he dies.

Annie appears on Art Linkletter's television show People Are Funny and receives a large check from him.

After collapsing on her farm and receiving a terminal diagnosis, Annie Wilkins refuses charity and plans one final adventure: riding her horse to California to see the Pacific Ocean. She sets off from Minot, Maine with only $32, her horse Tarzan, and her dog Depeche Toi, unprepared for how drastically the country has changed. Dangerous roads, harsh weather, and physical injuries test her resolve at every turn, while the generosity of strangers keeps her moving. A Kentucky farming couple gifts her a second horse named Rex, expanding her small traveling family. After surviving missing horses, a flash flood, and treacherous mountain passes, Annie accepts a ride into California and presses south toward Los Angeles. Her triumphant arrival earns her a television appearance and a life-changing payment that secures her future.

Annie's bold cross-country ride from a failing Maine farm to Hollywood

While Annie is hospitalized, her Uncle Waldo is moved to a nursing home and passes away.

Annie's livestock is sold to pay her hospital bills, leaving the farm empty when she returns home.

Dr. Cobb drives Annie home from the hospital and advises her to live restfully.

Tarzan is spooked by the unfamiliar surface of a new highway and bolts into the woods with Annie holding on.

The Bennett family takes Annie in after police bring her to their door late at night.

Maine journalist Mina Sawyer asks Annie to carry a letter from Maine's governor to the governor of Idaho.

Jean Lane, a young sled dog racer in Massachusetts, insists on hosting Annie and her animals for lunch.

Members of a Massachusetts horse-riding club greet Annie on the road and eagerly ride alongside her.

Springfield's Chamber of Commerce president escorts Annie to the Highland Hotel, the finest in town.

A vet examines Tarzan in Springfield and declares him in good health, ending public concern about Annie's treatment of him.

A television producer offers Annie a lucrative sponsorship deal to ride into New York City for the holidays, but she declines.

A stranger named Millie Rose stops Annie on the road and invites her to spend Christmas at her home in Trenton.

Annie is thrown from the saddle when Tarzan cracks the ice on a bridge over the Brandywine River.

Annie passes through the Kentucky town where Abraham Lincoln was born and visits the carefully preserved cabin.

Grieving the loss of Rex, Annie receives a new horse named King as a gift from Art Linkletter.

Annie's journey begins with compounding personal losses — her uncle's death and the sale of her livestock — before she sets off into a country that has largely moved on without her. Early encounters establish the pattern of her travels: moments of uncertainty balanced by the overwhelming warmth of strangers, including the Bennett family who take her in and encourage her to keep going. A Maine journalist begins following her story, and a Massachusetts sled dog racer and a local riding club reflect the growing public enthusiasm for her adventure. Her route takes unexpected turns, including a dangerous accident on the Brandywine River and a vet-arranged detour to warmer Kentucky. By the journey's end, the same media world that first bewildered Annie provides her salvation, as Art Linkletter gifts her a new horse and the means to survive after her devastating loss of Rex.

The people, places, and setbacks that shaped Annie's remarkable journey

Facing debt and a terminal diagnosis, Annie chooses to ride to California rather than enter the local county home.

Annie packs her supplies, writes the first entry in her travel diary, and commits to setting off as a tramp of fate.

On her very first day on the road, a local woman offers Annie water for the animals and a free lunch.

An Associated Press journalist intercepts Annie near the New Hampshire border, photographs her and her animals, and arranges her next lodging.

Well-wishers from a local Catholic church surround Annie on a Manchester street, recognizing her from newspaper coverage.

Annie leads the Manchester, New Hampshire town parade on horseback, moved by the size and warmth of the crowd.

The Hamlett family in Massachusetts calls a doctor for Annie's worsening cough and insists she rest for two days.

A harness factory makes custom leather boots to protect Depeche Toi's paw pads for the long journey ahead.

New Jersey police officer Joseph Mikalczyk and his wife throw Annie a surprise birthday party with food and gifts.

A Pennsylvania vet declares Tarzan unfit for winter riding and arranges for Annie and her animals to be trucked to Kentucky.

Tarzan drinks from a stream laced with rodenticide and falls dangerously ill, leaving Annie to fear the worst overnight.

Annie meets Wyoming rancher Harvey Kelsey during the Frontier Days events in Cheyenne, and he invites her to his ranch.

Harvey Kelsey surprises Annie by proposing marriage over dinner, but she declines, unwilling to give up her hard-won independence.

After being initially turned away by a secretary, Annie is welcomed by Idaho's governor, who reads the letter from Maine's governor.

Annie watches her first talking movie at a theater in Alturas, California, marveling at the entirely new experience.

Annie's entire journey pivots on one defiant choice: to ride to California rather than accept charity at the county home, a decision she seals by writing the first entry in her travel diary. Her earliest days on the road reveal both the hazards of modern car culture and the deep reserves of neighborly kindness that will carry her across the continent. Strangers repeatedly surprise her — fashioning custom boots for her dog, throwing her a birthday party, and consulting doctors on her behalf — transforming Annie's solitary adventure into a shared national story. The vast, lonely stretches of the Great Plains and the Rockies force her to confront her own mortality, while a poisoned horse and a rancher's unexpected marriage proposal test her resolve and her independence. A hard-won audience with Idaho's governor marks the fulfillment of a promise made near the journey's start. The adventure concludes with Annie watching her first talking film in a California theater, a small but vivid symbol of how far she has traveled from the world she knew.