River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1922-11-02

friend Of DR.. Quigley, we proceeded
south to Los Angeles and San Diego.
After San Diego came Tia Juana.
There are two classes of people at
Tia JuIana-bar tenders who sell bad
whiskey at good prices to American
tourists, and soldiers in comic opera
uniforms, whose sole contribution to
the industrial advancement of man,
kind consists in occasionally fiecking
mythical dust specks from enough
gold braid to break the back of Wall
dorf doorkeeper. After returning to
San Diego we drove east toward the
Imperial Valley, arriving at length at
the devils gorge, unique canyon
opening on the valley and piled high
with huge boulders, sunbaked, topsyA
turvy and desolate. And then, the
Imperial Valley.
You have heard how hot it is. What
ever story you have heard, couched in
whatever terms, reciting what mira
Gle of torridity-it's true. Ten o'clock
in the evening at Ell Centro-10S de-
grees. 1T was pretty hot this after
noon," was the optomistic report of
the garage man. "Yean, this is a
great relief. But these hot days
wheww
The next morning we started across
the Colorado desert for Yuma, AriZ.
Paving ruhls 20 miles into the desert,
leaving 80 miles unpaved. And what a
50 miles Sand, reaching to the nor
lion and merging in shBrlmering saff-
ron with the yellow morning sky. A
mesquite bush or two, and that is all.
The thermometer stood at 10 at
Holtville, but that was in the cool of
the morning. The nickel trimmings
of the car were too hot to touch.
Two hundred feet from the pave
ment our 5000 pounds burrowed
gently into the sand and remained
hub deep. 1t was o'clock in the
and remember, the yellow
sands met the yellow sky, and We
were alone in the bottom of vast
yellow sphere. But not wholly alone,
for at the end of the pavement lay
several piles of planks, awaiting con-
tinuance of paving this winter. An
hour of heartbreaking labor and we
had the car up on planks. Then we
had to build a road back to the paving.
We carried planks: Five planks, five
of rest; five planks, five min
vltes' rest. 1t was easy then to I'M
derstand how men go crazy in the
desert. Just two planks, and you
dropped exhausted in the shade of the
car. Just two planks and your jok-
ing about Zane Grey and his 'lost in
the desert stuff" became a bit fiatter,
your speech bit thicker. You said
you were through, but you were not
through, for there were two more
plank, always two more planks. !
At noon we were out.
Failure in the Colorado meant an
attempt at the Mojave desert, and we
not too blithely the day fol-
lowing to San Bernadino, where 50
degrees was refreshing, and pushed
on. In the Mojave the roads, while
frightful, have bottom, and in one
endless day and night we crossed to
Needles, on the Colorado river 250
miles. Funny little desert towns
those, where water is packed 80 miles;
where many tourists sit and wait
eternally for springs and rear ends
from Kansas City or Los Angeles.
Good gravel roads streak across
the first $50 miles of Arizona, and
steadily from Needles to Flagstaff one
climbs a great plateau to COCO feet.
But beyond Flagstaff roads cease, as
such. They are merely tracks where
others have gone before. On the strip
map furnished by the California Au-
tcmobile association of 65 miles from
Flagstaff to Winslow there are two
spots. One is marked "house" and
the other "old windmill" These two
things man has built in 65 miles. And
the roads get worse beyond Winslow.
We arrived at Holbrook in a sand
STORM, ard the next day, accompanied
by a guide, visited the Hopi Indian
reservation 10 miles north from the
railroad Our route carried us thru
the Painted desert, a wonderland Of
crimson and purple gray and orange
mesas, bold and fantastic, changing
in contour with each mile traverscd,
yet ever precipitous and commanding
as though an infant giant had scatter
ed blocks heedlessly about the level
plains. All day we rode, now in the
valley, now atop a mesa until evening