The open road awaited us. Only one thing held us back. 'Son of a bitch!' 'Marge,' pleaded my father, 'we can't move until you sit down. What the hell are you looking for?' 'I can't find my goddamn holy card.' 'What holy card?' I asked. 'My Mother Teresa holy card.' She answered, crawling on the floor. 'She's a saint. She's gonna get me there and get me home. Now where the hell is she?' The Ride of Our Lives is the humorous yet poignant account of NBC journalist Mike Leonard's cross-country odyssey with his feisty parents, both 'world-class eccentrics cut from the same bolt of Irish immigrant cloth'. Mike wanted his parents to revisit the things they held dear from their past, ending in Chicago in time for the birth of their first great-grandchild. But this is no ordinary road trip - rather, it's a jumping off point for a rich and wonderful foray into memory, family and home-grown wisdom.A four-week adventure turns into the journey of a lifetime as Mike's family revisit their shared past, both physically and emotionally - from stories of Irish immigration and the Great Depression to the precious gift of a great-grandmother's ring; and from anecdotes of long-ago childhood to the anticipation of a new generation. And along the way, Mike's parents, in their own unique style, reminisce about their loves, their losses, and their full and generous lives; sharing and arguing, laughing and crying - the bottom line is that family is what truly matters most. Film rights have been optioned by Disney.