Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1905-04-05
SCENERY
INSPIRES
EDITOR
Writes of the RetreatingBIuffS
Along the Mississippi
River

missouri Nalley, March 3l.-We made
up all time, pulled across Dakota and
Minnesota against hard wind, and en-
tered st. Paul on time to the minute.
The pastures were showing the first
tinges Of green as we started south
from ST. Paul Friday morning, March
3lst. The ride down the Mississippi
valley on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St.
Paul is a panoramic dream of beauty.
We touch the river here and there. The
bluffs grow abrupt, and either advance
or retreat, clad in forests not as large
as our Oregon forests, but beautiful
at all seasons. The silver birehes pre-
dominate, the graceful trees that one
of the poets has called the Lady of
the Woods. Lake Pepin is as charm
ing as any of our Pacific coast han
bors, and, looking south, much resem-
bles Yaquina bay, the hills enclosing at
it's lower end, and the train speeding
along its west bank, makes it scene of
grandeur.
Before leaving the transcontinental
train and its impressions, / wish to re-
mark that you do not live as we'll as you
go farther East. You do not get as
big meal in st. Paul or Minneapolis
for 80 cents as is served in Salem,
Portland or Seattle. The butter is in
ferior as soon as you are west of the
Cascades, and only grows good again
in Chicago.
Watson's restaurant at Portland is
unequaled in quality and service by
anything in the whole country. | doubt
If it is surpassed in San Francisco in
the comfort and variety of well-cooked
food offered. Give me the West for n
square meal for your money every time.
The dining ear service on the North
ern Pacific is very good-a la carte for
breakfast and lunch. and the dinner of
five courses is $lOO Many people car
ry lunches, and eat either the $l0Oi
dinner, or the other meals at 20 cents
and upward. according to choice.
We had Toke Point oysters on the
shell; soup and fish, salmon, halibut and
lake trout; roast meats and fowls; the
finest vegetables; then pastry and pud-
ding, ice cream, fruits, nuts, cheese, cof
fee Out of these you can pick dol
lar dinner in five installments. You
can't order il all brought ON at once, as
some of us sidewalk farmers do at home, !
but you can take an hour or an hour
and half to discuss your meal, and
they have the pleasantest walters of
any road we ever boarded on.
The menu cards are works of art, with !
of the Portland eXposi
tiou that would delight Tom Richard !
son in his efforts to boom the North
west From force of habit no doubt,
great many of the railroad officials east |
of Portland are still boosting for Puget |
Sound and California. We met Mil
woukee, Wis. physician, DR., =, j,
Phipps, who saw only the Sound coun.
try, and came back from the Pacific
coast disgusted. He could not see any
permanent agricultural resources back
of Western Washington, and was very 1
sorry he did not see Oregon. DIR.
Phipps is an example of hundreds who
are taken to the coast, steered up among
the stumps and forests of the Sound,
get the idea that there is no general
farming, dairying or fruit growing, and
return to the East with distorted
idea of the Northwest coast. We told
the doctor of some of the resources of
Oregon, Of the character of cities like
Portland and the Willamette valley
towns, gave him some advertising mat
ter to distribute, and he will be back
TO see the exposition, and the Western
Oregon country.
We met two bright business women
from Sea Clia, Long Island. They