In 1995, Patrick Dobson did something a lot of people have only dreamed about: He put his life on hold and tried to find himself.</p><p>He was unmarried, with a daughter. His job made him unhappy. </p><p>He thought about his father who had grown frustrated and angry working a tedious job. Dobson didn&rsquo;t want to look back one day and wonder, &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t I do something to change my life?&rdquo; </p><p>As a boy, he had fallen in love with the plains and prairies his family&rsquo;s station wagon sped through on the way to Colorado. Once a year, his dad had seemed happy on those trips to the mountains.</p><p>Then it came to him. A truly radical plan. </p><p>&ldquo;Helena, Montana,&rdquo; he said out loud.</p><p>By his estimation, Helena was the farthest, largest city on the other end of the Great Plains. </p><p>He decided to embark on a quest. He would walk from Kansas City to Montana, and since the Missouri River flowed nearby, canoe home.</p><p>Dobson spent more than a decade writing and rewriting the story of this journey and finding a publisher. The result, a memoir/travelogue called &ldquo;Seldom Seen&rdquo; (University of Nebraska Press), is out this month.</p><p>Today, Dobson is a union ironworker and doctoral student. The 3-year-old daughter he phoned on his trip is now 18. He and his wife of 11 years, an oncology nurse, adopted their 7-year-old son a few years ago. </p><p><strong>Q: What was your life like </strong><strong> when this journey came to you?</strong></p><p><strong>A:</strong> I seemed to be always coming home from work and getting ready to go to work at what was then the Ritz-Carlton, where I refinished furniture and worked in the engineering department.</p><p>One day in spring 1994, I was painting the floor of the engineering shop and painted myself, literally, into the center of the room. I realized my life and possibilities were as gray as the paint I was rolling on the floor.</p><p>Something inside me broke. I was scared to change anything but more frightened not to. I worked all I could for the next year to save the money for bills, child support and rent &mdash; so I&rsquo;d have a home to come back to &mdash; for the five months I thought the trip would take. </p><p><strong>Is this a book about work?</strong></p><p>It is. Work is a theme common to all of us. The story begins with work and is an exploration of how people deal with the drudgery and/or contentment their work presents them. In a sense, I start looking for a way to fit in and, instead, find a way to be happy with my own restless spirit.</p><p>&ldquo;Seldom Seen&rdquo; is also about taking risks and about letting the future and the past stay in the future and the past. </p><p><strong>You meet so many people along the way. The way you tell it, they readily offered you rides, a place to stay, meals, company. Is that really how it happened? </strong></p><p>I don&rsquo;t want people to think it was all tripping along in the sunshine. One must be cautious. In the book, the times I get myself into trouble happen when I don&rsquo;t trust my instincts. Those cautionary tales are part of the story.</p><p>Without exception, the people who offered to show me their towns, put me up and feed me had little or nothing to give. I don&rsquo;t know if generosity and lack of material security are connected, but my experience tells me they are closely related.</p><p><strong> How were you able to get all the details and the conversations right? You must have taken a lot of notes. </strong></p><p>I kept a journal. I wrote every day for at least a half-hour. I explored my essential self there. I wrote down as much as I could remember. I kept detailed notes on the landscape, the geology and topography, plants and animals. Still, the conversations and settings in the book are reconstructions. I didn&rsquo;t get everything verbatim and could not put everything in the book.