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
The heat was intense, even at nine in the morning, and Ogden, Utah,
165 miles south. “Are the roads good?” we asked the clerk. Smiling,
he replied, “I am from New York.” At Dayton, we crossed the border
into Utah. Before us lay a cement road as white as snow. We could
hardly believe our eyes. “Woman, bow down and worship!” the bird-man
exclaimed. Regardless of speed laws, we flew over that road for miles,
through beautiful towns and avenues of Lombardy poplars. We remarked
that every little bungalow was surrounded by these tall trees. “The
Mormons must have planted one for each wife and child.” The farms
were fertile and well cultivated, and for miles the peach orchards
lined the sides of the road, the trees laden with fruit. At each
station wagons were unloading hundreds of crates ready for shipment.
Tomatoes and melons, also, are raised in abundance. Brigham is a clean,
attractive city, with peach-trees growing in every garden and on the
roadside. They celebrate an annual “Peach day” in September. “Every
visitor will receive a peach,” the posters read. I bought a basket,
of a dozen or more, for ten cents. Here we became acquainted with the
red grasshopper. We thought we had left all of these little pests in
Fargo; but here they were as lively as ever and as red as strawberries.
And that reminds me--we have had delicious strawberries for weeks (in
August).
The roads were so wonderful that we forgot our aching backbones and
enjoyed every mile of the way into Ogden, to the Reed Hotel. We spent
two days here, as there was much of interest to see and do. The
hotel is old, but well kept up. We had a room large enough to hold a
convention in, with a smaller bedroom and bath adjoining, and eight
large windows altogether. Again the hotel was crowded. The railroad
strike was on in California, and people were marooned in every city;
only local trains were running.
The next day we drove to Salt Lake City, a distance of about
thirty-five miles. Of all the Western cities, we were most anxious to
see the capital of Utah. And now a joke at my expense! I asked the
clerk in the hotel where we could get the steamer for Salt Lake City.
“What steamer?” he asked in surprise.
“Can’t you go there by boat?”
“Say, lady, I guess you come from the East.”
I admitted the truth of that.
“Ever been West before?”
This time a negative.
“Don’t you know that the boat has never been built that will float on
Salt Lake?”
I thought of “Cowboy Charlie” and his book of “fool questions.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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