CHAPTER 29 Southern Sojourn With the passage across the Ohio River another great change came over the country. Leaving the North we entered the great Southland of America. The friendliness and courtesy attributed to this section was not a myth. Everyone wanted to talk and when we were forced to stop for directions, even the […]

CHAPTER 28 Mid-America—A Golden Opportunity In the silver mines of Idaho, Win and I had made what seemed to us like a small fortune in our three months of work underground. When hiking down to Twin Springs, Nevada in order to touch that state at its northern border, I had jokingly suggested to Win a […]

CHAPTER 27 Mile-high Magic and Misery Dan Vinson was a finance man for the big cattle kings. His work took him from coast to coast. The eighty-four mile ride with Vinson to his home in Raton, New Mexico was one of the most enjoyable and profitable of our journey, for this man taught us a […]

CHAPTER 26Santa Fe Trail One of the most notorious driving hazards in America loomed between Albuquerque and our next destination—Santa Fe. It was La Bajada Hill, according to travel lore one of the prime death traps in the country. Long before leaving Michigan we had heard of it, and in this part of the Southwest […]

CHAPTER 25 Hunger Strikes New Mexico. As we approached its border, the state greeted us with two episodes—one so old that it was becoming a nuisance, the other a “first ever” in our thousands of miles of travel. Episode Number One came in the form of another vicious rainstorm, which drove us into a culvert […]

CHAPTER 24Arizona Odyssey As Win and I turned south toward Prescott, the flat open sameness of the landscape made us realize the Grand Canyon had done something to our senses of perspective and proportion. It was a hard act to follow. But gradually we got back into the habit of not expecting things to be […]

CHAPTER 23Below the Rim It is useless to attempt to portray the suddenly unrolled panorama, or the impression received, as we walked from the woods to the brink of that great purple and gold abyss. The words in our diary failed to describe adequately what our eyes drank in as we stood awestruck on the […]

CHAPTER 22 The Grandest of Canyons No more cars came that day and at sunset we were in a hilly wooded country, thirty miles from the next food and water supply. There was also the prospect of facing a real Arizona cloudburst. The darkness of approaching night was intensified by the blackness of the storm. […]

CHAPTER 21 Desert Survival Another great episode of our trip was about to begin. We were leaving beautiful California, heading east, toward strange lands and dry deserts. We slept the night near San Bernardino, gateway to our first such desert, the Mojave. A pitted asphalt strip, just wide enough for a single car, was our […]

CHAPTER 20 Another Northwest Passage This 48 state odyssey of ours was not just an ordinary trip; it was a journey of discovery, of learning—a chance to absorb and study America. What could be more logical, then, than to include an occasional review of what had been learned? When Mr. Yates dropped us in front […]