The Belding banner-news. (Belding, Mich.) 1918-1973, 1919-01-22
LOCAL
MAN TELLS Of
INTERESTING "TRIP
w. J. FACE MAKES MOTOR TRIP
FROM STRATFORD, s. D., TO
LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA.

Mrs. Walter Knight and Alva and Ar
ba Face will be glad to read the fol-
lowing letter which appeared in the
Stratford Is. d. News at which place
Mr.. Face has been living for q num-
Der of years past and from where he
recently started en- a motor trip to
Long Beach, Cal, where he will spend
the winter.
Long Beach, Nov. 10, 1918.
Well, we arrived here the 18th at
| ID. m. safe and sound and the car run
ming like clock. The farther we
run the smoother it ran and the less
gas it took.
Talk about your Fords in the noun
tains. Well they all passed me at the
| foot Of the mountains but / passed
them again before we got to the top
and burned less gas than they did at
that. But one advantage we have got
to give them they can get extras any
where. / saw one man at Kingman
with Ford. He was ON a scrap pile
with two pillow wrenches tearing an
old baby wagon to pieces. Said we
were about to enter the desert and he
wanted plenty of extras for his Ford.
But / guess he did not get enough for
we passed three Fords on the desert
abandoned for want of extras.
We'll, we got quite chance to see
some country in Iowa. We went out
80 miles from Council Bluffs to Louis.
tell you that part of the country the
| soil was delivered faster than they
could spread it the whole so miles was
straight up and down, not q straight
rod on the level. To give you some
idea how long and step it is, q car
will coast without gas 35 miles an
hour down any of them and worst Of
all not foot of waste land. They
farm every bit of it.
| We visited Henry Alberts and Chas.
Saunders, uncles to the Mrs., their
crop was poor; didn't get any rain but
lots of hot wind. We were seven
days from the time we struck Omaha
until we pulled out again waiting for
| the roads to dry up. We got rained
in there. The second day we left
Omaha at Kearney Neb., we got
showed in; they got 10 inches of snow
and we had to stay there five days.
When we left the running boards of
our car were sliding in the mud and
snow. We drove 1T miles that day
but the last 80 miles were drier. We
stayed at North Plat that night and
lit was too cold and damp to camp.
The next morning we took off our
chains and oh the roads were all cut
to pieces clear to Cheyenne and down
for piece to Colorado and then we
came to irrigated land where they
raised sugar beets and this. year they
just had an awful crop. The most of
those fellows haul four horse loads
and they certainly haul some loads
and the ground on the roads was 80
dry they had just chopped all to
pieces. There is where trouble be-
gan 6 1-2 miles out of Greedy, Col,
we broke three leaves of one front
spring, drove back to Greedy to get
new one but had to be content with
rived in Denver on Sunday forenoon
morning as / wanted to get a new
spring for I'd rather have two new
ones than one welded one. The
crops were poor all the way through
Nebraska except little around Kear-
ney; the corn crop was fair but the
other crops did not amount to much.
In Colorado where they had that
awful sugar beet crop we saw acres
and acres just stacked up with beets
and they couldn't get cars enough to
ship it. -
/ understood before we started that
we were to cross two ranges of noun
tains but / only saw one. Went up
into the mountains shortly after we
left Denver and never came out until
just before we reached San Bernar-
dino.
/ would not give enc acre of land in
Brown county for all the land saw
between Denver and San Bernardino.
! That takes in the lions share Of Col
orado clear across New Mexico and
Arizona and nearly across California.
Nothing but mountains and desert.
At Santa Fe we put in 5 new spark
i plugs, opened up our carburetor so we
could take little more of that ligh
air and the car ran like new agai.
Only got out few miles and a stra
broke that held my gas tank on, cams
near losing my gas tank. took my
mud hook straps strapped it up and
run on to Magdalena but it~was Sat-
urday night and it was too late to
get any work done. Well the next
morning the radiator was froze up
solid, took some time to thaw out but
no damage was done. Sunday af-
ternoon we got within 40 miles of
Springville, broke every leaf in the
spring we had welded. Took me one
hour to put in the new one that we
bought at Denver. At Springville
got new strap made for my gas tank
lost another half day and thentwere
on our way rejoicing. Everything
went lovely until we got within 20
miles Of Barstow in the desert broke
four leaves in the front spring on my
side Of the car
Talk about the desert. they had me
scared but lots of drives in the noun
tains are 10 times worse. The day
III broke the spring on the desert we
drove 155 miles, the last 80 in q sand
and gravel blizzard. At times you
could see nothing, it tore the buttons
out Of my side curtains so l held one
side curtain with my left hand, steer
ed the car, worked the throttle, han
died the brake and changed gears with
Imy right hand. 1t only cost me .
new spring for I run out Of the road
and run over a rock. At Barstow
they had me going at IL q. m. the