I promised, paid him a dollar, and left to track down the offices of the local branch of the "3 A." Club, or Automobile Association of America, whom, I was informed, I must see before going any further, to inquire about the roads ahead. Dirt roads, it will be understood, vary with the weather. Hardly ever does the English motorist hear of a road being washed away with the rain, but the idea of its being borne away on the wings of the wind would indeed appear strange to him!
I found the "3 A." Club located at one of the large hotels, all alive with "bell-boys" and commissionaires and elevators. I was greeted by the hotel staff with haughty aloofness. "Put that gink outside," I could imagine the desk clerk saying to the hall-porter. But I was being whisked up the elevator to the umpteenth floor before he had the chance.
At the "3 A." Club office I was greeted most cordially. The gentleman at the desk was a human encyclopædia of roads and places. Beneath the dirt and dust he believed he perceived some person of high rank, a brigadier or something, and my brown tunic and field-boots must have borne out this assumption. However, that may be, he certainly did his best to give me every assistance. But when I told him I was motor-cycling to the Pacific and wanted to know which was the best road to take, his jaw dropped suddenly. There were two alternative routes to Kansas City, the "Pike's Peak" through Springfield and the "National Old Trails Highway" through St. Louis. Which should I take?
"Well, sir, the National Old Trail is impossible just now. The rains have been very heavy and there are several places where you couldn't possibly get through. And as for the other—well, I shall have to think."
Which he did. He hummed and ha'd and stroked his chin and hummed and ha'd again, as if struggling with some momentous problem. He spread out maps in rows before him and followed the route with his finger. Then silence.
After a minute or two of this, in which the merits of "washouts" and hold-ups and detours by the score were being weighed together in his troubled brain, he spoke:
"Yes, sir, I think you can get through"—and, more deliberately—"I think you can get through. Yes, it's a good road," he added.
I learnt then for the first time one outstanding principle in the road-study of America. I confirmed it on innumerable occasions later. There are two classes of roads and two only. They are good roads and bad roads. Any road, anywhere, in the whole of the United States of America (and, I presume, her Colonies as well) is a "good" road if you can "get through." The remainder are bad.
I thanked my benefactor and accepted sheaves of maps and guide-books for which he would take no payment. He was indeed the quintessence of obligation. I on my part was the quintessence of gratitude.
"Now for the fun," I chuckled as I kicked Lizzie to a roar and set out for the highway with red- and white-circled telegraph poles.