Returning to Ogden, we spent the next day visiting Ogden Canyon, a short trip of twenty miles. We drove through groves of walnut trees laden with nuts. Making a sharp turn on a good macadam road, you wind through a deep canyon gorgeous with autumn foliage, a beautiful sight. The river bank is lined with vine-covered bungalows, almost hidden from view. The canyon streams are noted for the brook-trout fishing. A Boston chap told us that he and two other boys caught ninety pounds in three days. We lunched at the Hermitage, the best-known resort near Ogden. It is built of logs, in the wildest part of the canyon. The house was decorated with ferns and mountain wild flowers, as artistically as a private home. We certainly enjoyed the brook-trout dinner ($1.50) of fish caught that day in front of the hotel. Of course, this cannot be compared to Yellowstone Canyon, but it is very beautiful and well worth the trip from Ogden. That evening we pored over maps. There was no route across the desert that was good--only some were worse than others. Everyone advised us to take the “Pike’s Peak Ocean-to-Ocean Highway,” which follows the Southern Pacific Railroad (at intervals), and is considered a “safety-first” way. I never see that word “highway” that I don’t want to laugh! A “cow-path” would more nearly describe any that we traveled in Idaho or Nevada (not to mention a few others). XIII NEVADA AND THE DESERT We did not look forward with an atom of pleasure to this part of the trip. We dreaded it. It simply _had_ to be done. The officials told us that nearly all the tourists shipped their cars to Reno. That was valuable information to give us, when not a train was running west. The clerk pointed out a dried-up little woman of seventy, and said, with a withering glance at me: “See that old lady? She has driven her own car across the desert twice this summer!” Well, you know how such remarks make you feel. Not that you care a--bit what that clerk thought of you, but you don’t like to realize that you are a molly-coddle or a coward. Besides, my husband had laughed at my apprehensions, and that wouldn’t do either. So I thought of our good fortune so far, of our slogan, and of the old party of seventy, and I gave my pride a hitch and said, “Let’s start”--and we did.