The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1922-07-21

fore Starting Long Trip.
An automobile tourist can 60 from
the Atlantic to the Pacific coast
without using a map and without
consulting a guide book. All that
the driver has to do is follow a
blazed trail. Nothing is more signifi-
cant of the automobile than the road
ways which have been marked out
across the country for making it easy
for travellers to go from town to town,
across state after state, and into all
the places of the country.
A thousand towns claim to be the
gateways into various regions, and
many places have regional features
which justify them in their preten-
siOns. A glance at any roadway map
of the United States reveals many
curious and influential features.
Thus, between the Canadian a nd
Mexican borders there are only seven
crossings feasible under present con-
ditiOns, from the Rockies to the Sier-
ras, a distance Of about 1900 miles ;
and from the Missouri river to the
Pacific coast there are only nine or
ten practicable routes from the north
to the south, and of these hardly more
than FIVE are connected with Canadian
routes, says the New York World.
These are main, marked and FEAST
BILE routes. Yet at times some Of
these highways are apt to be subject
to delays and difficulties which battle
or greatly deter the passerby. When
the great cloudburst assails the
eastern slopes of Colorado's Rockies
tourists caught in the canons in the
mountains and out on the prairies
were subjected to experiences none
of them will forget.
Premier Trip In World.
Thousands of people have in mind
the transcontinental automobile trip.
This is the premier automobile jour-
ney of the world. Not only Is the
journey entirely feasible but it is
coming to be a regular jaunt of
countless tourists who have the time
to spare. People of Iowa, Missouri,
Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma are
only II or Is days leisurely auto
mobile I'll from the Pacific coast,
but New York and eastern states are
twice as far, and if the journey from
coast to coast is reckoned in terms
Of difficulties, it is more than three
times as hard to 60 from, say, Col
OradO Springs to Los Angeles as from
New York City to Colorado Springs.
The conditions which a tourist used
to New England and eastern state
roads confronts when he has crossed
the Mississippi are astonishing. The
work which states in the West have
put upon their roads is enormous
when n considers the population.
There are about five miles of narrow
paved roadway east from Reno, New,
and then hundreds of miles of almost
unworked desert and mountain trails
across Nevada, where, at Ely, in the
eastern part, are about 10 miles Of
pavement as far as McGill, and then
more hundreds Of miles to Salt Lake
City, where good roads appear from
Springville, out Of Spanish Fork
Cdnou up u OHuen.
And this is on the route of the Lin
coin highway, probably the best all
around roadway from coast to coast,
although in spring and autumn the
Santa Fee route is perhaps better on
The average under the tires-but the
desert suns are merciless in July and
August and part of June and Septem-
Der, at least.
Ignorance.
The astonishing thing about the
United States is the ignorance of peO-
pie about the actual conditions which
confront the tourist, no matter in
what direction he goes away from
home.
The average automobile tourist
actually has no idea whatever of the
distance he must traverse to 90 from
one place to another, no least notion
of what he undertakes when he starts
for Denver or Los Angeles or San
Francisco. Unfortunately, wonder
lands of the country are shaded by the
efforts of some people to belittle what,
for example, Utah or Idaho or New
Mexico have to display. The war Of
automobile trails bids fair to hide the
genuine glories of the vast national
domain.
The automobile speed record from
coast to coast is approximately five
days. Judging from this enormously
difficult accomplishment tourists figure
on a jaunt from New York to San
Francisco in 20 days or so. This
time demands nearly 200 miles a day
of travel. The fact Of the matter is,