Chapter I: Preface

“Qui s’excuse s’accuse.” Which, I suppose, proves this a defence to start with! But having been a few times accused, there are a few explanations I want very much to make.

When this cross-continent story was first suggested, it seemed the simplest sort of thing to undertake. All that was necessary was to put down experiences as they actually occurred. No imagination, or plot or characterization—could anything be easier? But when the serial was published and letters began coming in, it became unhappily evident that writing fact must be one of the most unattainably difficult accomplishments in the world.

In the first place, only those who, having lived long in a particular locality and knowing it in all its varying seasons, are qualified truly to present its picture. The observations of a transient tourist are necessarily superficial, as of one whose experiences are merely a series of instantaneous impressions; at one time colored perhaps too vividly, at another fogged; according to the sun or rain at one brief moment of time.

It would be very pleasant to write nothing but eulogies of people and places, but after all if a personal narrative were written like an advertisement, praising everything, there would be no point in praising anything, would there?

Compared with crossing the plains in the fifties, the worst stretch of our most uninhabited country is today the easiest road imaginable. There are no longer any dangers, any insurmountable difficulties. To the rugged sons of the original pioneers, comments upon “poor roads”—that are perfectly defined and traveled-over highways—or “poor hotels”—where you can get not only a room to yourself, but steam heat, electric light, and generally a private bath—must seem an irritatingly squeamish attitude. “Poor soft weaklings” is probably not far from what they think of people with such a point of view.

On the other hand if I, who after all _am_ a New Yorker, were to pronounce the Jackson House perfect, the City of Minesburg beautiful, the Trailing Highway splendid, everyone would naturally suppose the Jackson House a Ritz, Minesburg an upper Fifth Avenue, and the Trailing Highway a duplicate of our own state roads, to say the least!

I am more than sorry if I offend anyone—it is the last thing I mean to do—at the same time I think it best to let the story stand as it was written; taking nothing back that seems to me true, but acknowledging very humbly at the outset, that after all mine is only _one_ out of a possible fifty million other American opinions.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. IT CAN’T BE DONE—BUT THEN, IT IS PERFECTLY SIMPLE 1

II. ALBANY, FIRST STOP 15

III. A BREAKDOWN 18

IV. PENNSYLVANIA, OHIO AND INDIANA 23

V. LUGGAGE AND OTHER LUXURIES 37

VI. DID ANYBODY SAY “CHICKEN”? 41

VII. THE CITY OF AMBITION 46

VIII. A FEW CHICAGOANS 52

IX. TINS 60

X. MUD!! 67

XI. IN ROCHELLE 72

XII. THE WEIGHT OF PUBLIC OPINION 75

XIII. MUDDIER! 79

XIV. ONE OF THE FOGGED IMPRESSIONS 86

XV. A FEW WAYS OF THE WEST 90

XVI. HALFWAY HOUSE 99

XVII. NEXT STOP, NORTH PLATTE! 107

XVIII. THE CITY OF RECKLESSNESS 119

XIX. A GLIMPSE OF THE WEST THAT WAS 135

XX. OUR LITTLE SISTER OF YESTERDAY 150

XXI. IGNORANCE WITH A CAPITAL I 155

XXII. SOME INDIANS AND MR. X 159

XXIII. WITH NOWHERE TO GO BUT OUT 172

XXIV. INTO THE DESERT 175

XXV. THROUGH THE CITY UNPRONOUNCEABLE TO AN EXPOSITION
BEAUTIFUL 187

XXVI. THE LAND OF GLADNESS 198

XXVII. THE METTLE OF A HERO 205

XXVIII. SAN FRANCISCO 211

XXIX. THE FAIR 229

XXX. “UNENDING SAMENESS” WAS WHAT THEY SAID 237

XXXI. TO THOSE WHO THINK OF FOLLOWING IN OUR TIRE
TRACKS—TO THE MAN WHO DRIVES 241

XXXII. ON THE SUBJECT OF CLOTHES—FOOD
EQUIPMENT—EXPENSES—DAILY EXPENSE ACCOUNT 251

XXXIII. HOW FAR CAN YOU GO IN COMFORT?—SOME DAY 278

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Pacific at last! _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

What we finally carried 8

Stowing the luggage 12

Leaving Gramercy Park, New York 16

Still in New York State 20

The crowd in less than a minute. “Out of the window”
in Cleveland 34

One of the exciting things in motoring is wondering what
sort of a hotel you will arrive at for the night 44

Hours and hours, across land as flat and endless as the
ocean 84

A bedroom in the Union Pacific Hotel, North Platte—not
much of a hardship, is it? 108

A straight, wide road; not even a shack in sight—and
a speed limit of twenty miles an hour 112

Wyoming in the ranch country 116

Cripple Creek 120

In the Garden of the Gods 124

Colorado. Pike’s Peak in the distance 128

First cowboys and cattle 132

Halfway across a thrilling ford, wide and deep, on the
Huerfano River 136

A glimpse of the West of yesterday 140

Your route leads through many Mexican and Indian villages 148

The Indian pueblo of Taos 160

To see the sleeping beauty of the Southwest, the path
is by no means a smooth one to the motorist 170

Across the real desert 180

Our chauffeur takes a day off at the Grand Canyon of
the Colorado 184

This is not a gallery in a Spanish palace, but a
gallery in the Mission Inn at Riverside, California 188

In a California garden 192

Under Santa Barbara skies 196

Ostrich Rock, Monterey, California 200

On the seventeen-mile drive at Monterey 208

On a beautiful ocean road of California 216

The portico of a California house 226

Sometimes we struck a bad road 244

In order to cross here, E. M. built a bridge with the
logs at the right 248

On the famous “staked plains” of the Southwest 254

BY MOTOR TO THE GOLDEN GATE