It might have been worse : $b a motor trip from coast to coast — John Shaqi
It might have been worse : $b a motor trip from coast to coastMassey, Beatrice Larned
General
It might have been worse : $b a motor trip from coast to coast
Massey, Beatrice Larned
Automobile travel; United States -- Description and travel
We all urged her to go, one lending a hat, another a coat, until at
last she appeared with a khaki divided skirt, white blouse, blue coat,
and sailor hat, looking very presentable, very pretty, and rather ill
at ease. While Toodles was dressing he told us that he had been in the
park for years and had charge of the saddle-horses and riding parties.
As it was all a lark, and we thought she might not want her name known
to him, we told him that her name was “Toodles.” “All right,” with a
grin; “I’m on.” When starting he whistled to his dog and called, “Come
on, Toodles,” and she nearly fell off her horse (he made her ride
astride).
“What’s the matter? I am just calling my dog.”
“Oh, is _that_ your dog’s name?” Toodles replied faintly. “How funny!”
Off they rode up the mountains, and did not return until six o’clock.
That evening “Charlie” appeared at the dance in ordinary citizen’s
clothes, but the picturesque cowboy was gone. He had written a book of
“all the fool questions people have asked me in twenty years.” He kept
us gasping at the tales of Western adventure until nearly midnight. In
the morning he was on hand to see us off.
The next day was clear and beautiful. Our road took us east over the
Continental Divide and along the shores of Yellowstone Lake, past the
mud geysers, to the Grand Canyon Hotel. On the divide is lily-covered
Isa Lake, whose waters in springtime hesitate whether to flow out one
end, into the Pacific, or out the other, into Atlantic waters, and
usually compromise by going in both directions. We passed over very
steep grades commanding a superb view of Mt. Washburne (ten thousand
feet high) through the knotted woods and dense pine forests, past the
upper and lower falls, stopping at Artist’s Point to get our first
view of the Grand Canyon. It is twenty miles long--the most glorious
kaleidoscope of color you will ever see in nature! You look down a
thousand feet or more at the foaming Yellowstone River. A little south
of this point a waterfall twice as high as Niagara, seemingly out
of the dense pine heights above, roars and tumbles into the depths
below. “Rocky needles rise perpendicularly for hundreds of feet, like
groups of Gothic spires.” Again, “the rocks, carved and fretted by the
frost and the erosion of the ages.” And the coloring--this is almost
impossible to describe. From the deepest orange to pale yellow, from
Indian red to exquisite shell-pink, in all shades of soft green touched
by Autumn’s hand. With the greenish cascade of water foaming beneath
us and the blue dome of the heavens above, we stood there awed by its
fearful majesty and unequaled beauty. As if to make the picture more
perfect, an eagle soared through the canyon, lighting on a pinnacle of
jagged rocks, where his nest clung as if by magic. As we watched him
in silence, the words of Tennyson, to which McDowell has written his
exquisite composition, “The Eagle,” came to us:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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