Property:Has text
From Off the Road Database
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C
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<p>We left the main railroad there to avoid possible snow at the California border, spending an uneventful day through a sparsely settled section of Nevada. On our way we saw steam coming from the earth in a circle, perhaps a mile in circumference, which caused much speculation on our part. We reached Cherry Creek that night and Ely about two o'clock the next day. There we went directly to the post office where we expected mail, and while Fred was inside a well-dressed man wearing a wide rimmed, black hat examined the car and its signs, then came up to me and asked if we were going on that day and if we knew the route. I told him we were going to the restaurant first, then get our directions and go some distance, if possible. He introduced himself as the guide for the famous Thomas Flyer car which had gone through that section a few months previously, while competing in the New York-to-Paris road race. He said he would be glad to go with us to the restaurant and give us full directions while we were having our meal. I thanked him and said we would be pleased if he would do so.
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<p>While scouting around, Fred found that the railroad company had a dining car there to serve meals to the train crews as they came in from their division runs, so he made arrangements for us to have our meals there.
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<p>On the ninth day of our wait, word came from the express man that the gear had arrived, so we went back to Montello after lunch. In two hours Fred had the gear in, the engine timed, baggage packed, and we waved good-bye to our friends. We stayed that night in Cobre, Nevada.
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<p>When we appeared in the morning, the cook was getting breakfast, and asked Fred to go outside with him and bring in the meat. Fred returned with a grin on his face and a hind-quarter of beef on his shoulder. He carefully laid the meat on a table and the cook cut off immense steaks for our breakfast, which we ate ravenously in preparation for a long day's ride to Tonopah. When he found I had lived in Smoky Valley, Nevada, and visited the A. B. Millett family, who were old friends of his, he changed from a cross cook to a genial host, telling us about the hot springs we would pass on the road that day, showing us the twin springs from which the ranch got its name, and giving us directions so that we had no trouble all day. We brought some of the outside world into his life for a short time, and I don't believe he ever forgot us, besides being paid well for his extra work.
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<p>We were carrying a five-gallon milk can to use in Nevada, but had no need to fill it yet, as water was not scarce along the railroad. Fred put me to bed first, clothed in all my warm things including cap, gloves, and boots. He covered me with robes and shoveled sand on the canvas over my feet to keep out the cold wind, and put the umbrella over my head to keep off the snow. I fell asleep almost at once and when I awoke, Fred was sitting by the fire. It was four o'clock and he said he dared not go to sleep because the wind blew the sparks everywhere, and he had been busy all night extinguishing sparks around me and the car, some sparks even catching in the resinous twigs above us.
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<p>Before leaving, our host took me out and showed me a rocky knoll that he said in early mining days would be covered with rattlesnakes that came out to sun themselves, and the glitter of their bodies could be seen a long distance as the sun shone on them. One miner began shooting them and saving their rattles, until he was able to send a peck of them to Tiffany's in New York.
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<p>We stopped, determined to go no farther in the storm. We covered the car, took our suitcases and robes, and walked a half mile through the snow, ditches and sagebrush to Edison, as it was marked on the railroad map. A light flashed in a window—a beacon in the stormy night, reassuring evidence of habitation. At our knock, a smiling Japanese section boss opened the door and ushered us in.
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<p>It would be difficult for the drivers of today's luxurious cars on our modern highways to visualize the adverse conditions that faced the horseless carriage when it was first coming into use after the turn of the century. Naturally, these early automobiles were primitive affairs and few drivers knew much about their mechanical parts. Repair and service stations were few and far between—especially where we went—and mechanics still were groping in the darkness, for the most part. There were no highway signs anywhere; in many states, particularly in the West, roads were almost impassable for a low-built vehicle, and it was taken for granted that on a trip of any length there would be many streams to ford.
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<p>We turned north next day, heading for San Francisco, and felt, after fighting bad roads so long, that we had nothing to do all day. There still were no road signs, but the region was so well settled we had no trouble in finding our way or getting food and lodging.
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<p>In mid-afternoon, the snow came down so thick and fast that I was kept busy clearing it from the top of the umbrella, which was being bogged down by the snow's weight. The roads, such as they were, were beginning to disappear under the blanket of snow and we had to crawl along, fearful of damaging the car on some hidden rock. Then we saw a section house, about dusk.
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<p>I had no idea what he meant, so I just smiled. In the evening people began arriving and putting children to bed until I began wondering if each mother ever would find her own child. No one introduced me as I sat and watched the crowd until a white-haired old man with a violin under his arm appeared in the doorway, peered about the crowd, and asked if the lady who had played the piano in the afternoon was there. I asked if he meant me, and his face lit up as he asked if I would try and accompany him on the piano. Here was another piano no one knew how to play!
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<p>The factory required a telegram every night giving the car's location, also a daily written account signed both by driver and observer, to be mailed each night to the factory. Fred won first place among the five cars at the end of the run, later receiving a silver cup and ebony pedestal. The points which won him the decision were prompt and full reports, high gasoline and oil mileage and fewest repairs. His only replacement was a 10-cent commutator spring which he installed himself.
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<p>I don't suppose my husband and I could possibly make clear to modern motorists the intense affection we developed for a piece of machinery—our little Brush Runabout. But at the end of our ordeal (it was 1908) we parted with the car as if it had been a favorite child.
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<p>DIFFICULTY GOING IN THE MOUNTAINS OF UTAH
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<p>Next morning, as we climbed a long grade to the top of the Wasatch Mountains, a dozen or more cowboys on their ponies surrounded us, lighting cigarettes, laughing, fixing saddles, in front and then behind us until we began to get nervous, wondering what they were trying to do. Just before we reached the top of the hill, one of them reined in his pony, faced us and said, "I guess you won't need us to pull you up this hill."
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<p>We went through Fresno, San Jose, past Stanford University, and soon the breeze from the Pacific Ocean brought the salt odor of the water as we rode along "El Camino Real," the old Spanish road used by the padres, Spaniards and Indians long before California was part of the United States. It is bordered by tall eucalyptus trees, with small mission bells at intervals.
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<p>Soon after leaving Promontory, we got into such bad gumbo mud we were glad to back out, after much trouble, and drive on the railroad track as we had been told we would have to do. There were three trains a week on this road to hold the right of way (the main line had been built across Salt Lake). Since this was not a train day, we drove over the road bed and ties, stopping often, as the bumping from tie to tie set our car bouncing on the coil springs, endangering the flywheel. Once two wheels slipped off the tie-ends into the mud and the car hung on the inside of the rail by the other two wheels, at an angle of thirty degrees. We worked with old ties and sticks to raise the wheels from the mud, finally getting them on the ties again. We drove all day in a fog, never stopping for lunch, and made all of 17 miles.
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<p>My face mask came into good use around Salt Lake, for the air was filled with gnats in the mornings, but Fred thought it was ugly, so I removed it whenever we passed through towns.
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<p>We never had had any mechanical trouble with the Brush, and its actions were a puzzle. Late in the afternoon the car took another rest. Fred dutifully alighted and began another search. Suddenly he announced he had found the trouble. My spirits rose at once; all I had been able to do all day was sit and worry when the car stopped and enthuse when it mysteriously started again. The trouble was a simple thing, but it had made the day tragic for us. The insulation was worn through on a wire under the machine, short circuiting the engine when the bare wire happened to touch the metal frame. Locating it was the difficult part, but a little tape remedied it and the car was itself again, fairly spurning the worst mud of the day with its wheels and bringing us to Kelton and a railroad for a Sunday night cold lunch, though we persuaded the waitress to augment it with some hot soup. There was a smug crowd of clerks, teachers, and the like at one table, with not a thought beyond food. They sat there in their Sunday best as we entered dressed in our soiled traveling clothes. They looked at us as though we were something the cat had dragged in. That didn't bother us in the least because we had completed another lap on our journey, with food and shelter for the night, and our trusty car waiting to go at the turn of the crank.
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<p>The gas tank had to be soldered, besides replacing the fenders and running boards, before they could start for Denver that night. While working in the garage, another car backed up in front of Fred and began shooting the exhaust in his face. He quit work, went over to the owner, and asked him to move the car, as the fumes were very annoying. The man answered that if he didn't like it, he could move his own car. There was no room to move back, so after a few words—tired from his climb and anxious to get home that night—Fred lost his temper and hit the man on the chin with his fist. The other shook his head and said, "Did you mean that?" Fred replied, "Yes, I did," and soon the two were a rolling heap on the floor. The cameraman had to separate them. The man then moved his car and before Fred left, he came back and apologized to him.
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