Following his stateside return from Iraq, Jack Armstrong, a literal and figurative Jack-of-All-Trades in his civilian life, came down with an undiagnosed illness, he sent home from the hospital to the care of his wife, Lizzie Armstrong, in what were expected to be his final days. Instead, it was Lizzie who passed suddenly in a traffic accident, Jack miraculously fully recovering following. Jack has decided to take their two children, fifteen year old Mikki and young adolescent Cory, on what was Lizzie's planned family summer vacation to her hometown of Channing, it to be spent at what Lizzie had always considered her