Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1903-12-16
A Trip to California.


We left the metropolis Of Illionis at
5 o'clock on flyer over the Burling-
ton route bouEd for the beautiful city
of Los Angeles, the paradise of Cali
fornia. The first night we passed
away most of the time reading novels
while comfortable situated in our berth.
But towards morning gradually be-
coming drowsy we went to sleep and
slept until II o'clock ard was little
surprised to find we had left the beauti-
full state Of Illinois and the train was
speeding over the rails through the
State of Iowa. We spent half hour
playing a few games OF euchre until
lunch time And then had a light
lunching in the beautiful dining car
of the Burlington system. And most
spent sleeping, being SO tired. Not
finding anything exciting our interest
in the state of Iowa it being similar to
our home state of Wisconsin. We
arrived in the metropolis of Colorado
the afternoon of the second day of our
trip at o'clock. We spent that night
and half of the following day there
taking in the sights. We found Den
yer very exciting city and up to date
in all particulars. We took in the
show at the Grand theatre, the name
of the play being the ''Texas Steer !"
The next morning, we arose early
anxious to see the rest of the sights of
of Denver by day light. We awoke
about seven o'clock in the morning and
the first thing to catch our eye sight
at glancing out of the hotel window
was large herd of snorting steers be-
ing driven to the stock yards to be
shipped away. Driven by some COW
boys. And after breakfast we went to
the city park and found it to be mag
ni6cent, aglow with beautiful monu-
ments and excellent driveways, and
also containing animals OF all kinds.
We left Denver at 10 o'clock and found
nothing exciting until we reached the
beautiful little city of Colorado Springs.
The train laid over there for about
four or five hours on account of a
wreck on the Denver Rio Grande.
You could see the mountains in the
distance pointing heavenward and
covered with a white sheet of snow
and fourteen thousand feet above the
sea level. We stood there gazing up
on the cog-wheel railroad winding
it's way through the mountains. We
then boarded the Colorado Midland
railroad that took us grad ually up in
to the Rocky mountains and going
higher every mile. The train not
running more than 10 miles an hour
all the way through the mountains and
gradually going thousands of feet
above the sea level. And we wee
all the time getting more excited
every mile we passed. And now we
find ourselver away up in the monu-
tains thousands of feet above the sea
level looking down upon the beautiful
scenery below with all its splendor, be-
yond description and a picture no art
ist can paint. At times we thought
we would never live to tell the tale be-
cause at times the train would shoot
around sharp curves through tunnels
and going at a lively clip. You could
look down upon the rails of the narrow
gauge railroad winding it's way along
the Rockies. We were delayed be-
tween two tunnels in the mountains
for sometime on account of some slight
mishap to one of the engines there be-
ing 15 coaches filed to their full capac
itv and being drawn by double head
er. All this time we could see Pixies
Pc ak in the distance covered with q
white sheet of snow and gradually
seeming to draw near it, still it was
miles and miles away. We saw Grand
Canon, Royal Gorge and many other
nice places but these being the prin-
cipal ones. After descending the
mountains we stopped at many beau
tiful mountain resorts and found
them to be very pleasant places for
tourists to spend the summer months.
Nice spring water near at hand. We
also passed some Interesting mining
towns, the town of Deadville being the
largest. 1t has some very large smelt-
ing works. We finally leave the state
of Colorado and draw nearer to the
.Aoko ~ T1foh ord HrG