Across America by Motor-cycle

by C. K. Shepherd

On the road again, ever westward, ever looking forward to the day when from the dreadful monotony of the plains the Rocky Mountains would loom high and faint upon the horizon.

I passed a few small towns at long intervals, towns with picturesque names such as "Cimarron," "Garden City," "Lamar," and "Las Animas." In every case an approaching town was heralded by an unspeakable stretch of road. With the passage of traffic of all kinds the road was ground up into powder. Every inch of it was loose sand, sometimes a couple or three feet deep, sand that would be impassable to any but horse-drawn traffic. As a saving grace it was generally less deep at the edges of the road than in the middle, and locomotion was just within the range of possibility with frequent assistance by way of "leg-work" and with occasional spills and crashes. The only use I had for these towns lay in the unlimited scope for ice-cream consumption which they all afforded. As time went on, Lizzie showed signs of further disrupture. Gradually little noises and rattles developed and slowly her power fell off by almost imperceptible degrees. Of course I had ample power even at that to cover the country, which, with few exceptions, was level, and the road, where dry, was good. I averaged no more than twenty-five, and as there was hardly any stop to make or traffic to slow down for, this did not mean travelling more than thirty at any time. A good conscientious motorist, I told myself, would stop and examine everything. I had got far beyond that stage. "Let the old crock go on till she busts," I muttered inwardly and opened up to avoid an oncoming thunderstorm.

Thunderstorms travel quickly in U.S.A. They get a hustle on and don't mess about generally. There's never any doubt about it when you see one coming. It means business; there is none of that burbling, gurgling, gloomy overture that hangs around for hours in England and very often comes to nothing at all. No, no. In U.S.A. you see a thundercloud on the horizon and before you've got "George Washington" off your lips it's on you with a crack and a bump and a splash and woe betide any innocent motor-cyclist who is riding in his shirt-sleeves with his jacket strapped on the back.

But that rain was good! Kansas can be hot when it likes and it's mostly liking all the time, so that a shower-bath is a gift from the gods. When it stopped, and fortunately before it had had time to do its foul work on the surface of the dirt road, I arrived in Syracuse, a small town with not much of a population to substantiate its artistic name, and but twenty or thirty miles from the Colorado State Line. Net result 150 odd miles that day and to-morrow with luck I should behold the Rockies. Oh, those Rockies! How I longed to see them!

The rest of the evening I spent adjusting Lizzie's tappets (they had all worked loose, hence the noise) and eating pies and ices at every café in the place. The night was spent in a dirty inhospitable little inn calling itself, I think, the Broadway Temperance Hotel. Heaven help Broadway, and the Devil take all temperance hotels! I shivered as I compared this with the night before.

Westward once more. In an hour I crossed the State Line. Invariably there is a large sign-board denoting this fact. "This is the State of Colorado, the most Picturesque and Fertile State in the Union," it read on this occasion. This time there was not such a marked change in the country. It was still flat, still dismally uninteresting. Everything looked dried up. At times the trail, which hitherto had followed the Arkansas "River," crossed and re-crossed it by long low creaky wooden bridges. There was still no water flowing underneath them. "Water? That was only meant to flow under bridges," says the confirmed toper. The Arkansas River "puts him wise" on that point!

Flagrant mistakes now appeared on the map. Roads and towns which in reality lay on one side of the river were alleged to be on the other. Distances became either grossly exaggerated or hopelessly underestimated, so much so that I only expected to get to a place when I found myself already there. If it turned out to be another place than that I had expected—well, there, that made it all the more exciting.

Later on the trail became very dishevelled and forlorn. Great waves of sand were piled up in ridges and furrows defying all comers. Sometimes a benevolent signpost advised all drivers of automobiles not to risk travelling thereon, but to follow such and such a detour which would lead back to the road ten or fifteen miles farther on. I saw many such notices. At first I scorned them, but the sand grew so thick and deep that it enveloped the frame of the machine and the projecting footboards brought progress to a standstill. For several hours I pushed and heaved and skidded and floundered about on highways and detours and pathways that baffle description. If I averaged ten miles an hour I was content with that. I got through many places that passing pedestrians swore were impassable. In short I was beginning to reduce locomotion over American roads to a science.

At La Junta, the Santa Fé Trail swerves to the south-west towards New Mexico, but another trail continues westward and northward towards Pueblo, Colorado Springs, and Denver, the three "cities" of Colorado State, and Pike's Peak, one of the highest points of the Rockies. I decided to leave the trail for a day or two and go sightseeing in famous Colorado. So I continued westward, scanning the horizon all the time for a vision of a vast and rugged mountain range. The sight of mountains would be as balm to a sore wound; as welcome as a spring of water in the desert; or even as the sight of land to a shipwrecked mariner, so heartily tired was I of the endless plains and the inexhaustible flatness and monotony of the country for the past thousand miles.