Heading for New Mexico in her mini-Winnebago, Maxie McNabb and her dog, Stretch, find their cross-country odyssey interrupted by the attempted suicide of a local woman despondent over the infidelity of her middle-aged husband.

Sixty-something Maxie McNabb and her miniature dachshund, Stretch, are just back home from their latest adventure, and are preparing to settle in for the approaching winter. They go for a walk along the beach before the snows flies, and meet a pleasant drifter who has come to see the town Alaskans call "the end of the road." John Walker has no friends in the area and no plans, so Maxie invites him to dinner with a group of her friends. The next day,...