When the woman he has been traveling with returns to Europe, the heartbroken senescent nomad becomes disenchanted with his lifestyle on the road and decides to find a home. His search takes him up the West Coast from San Diego to Puget Sound. Along the way he encounters sophisticated transients at a makeshift homeless encampment, sinister campers in the wilderness, seductive members of a wandering sex cult, and idiosyncratic individuals at a gathering of science fiction and fantasy writers. As he travels, he discovers that abandoning the nomadic lifestyle is far more difficult than initiating it. Faced with the uncertainty, confusion, and perils of the open road, he wonders if he will manage to gain the stability of a place he can call his own.