“We are not taking one, nor servants, nor mechanic, either.”
“Surely you and your son are not thinking of going alone! Probably he could drive, but who is going to take care of the car?”
“Why, he is!”
At that everyone interrupted at once. One thought we were insane to attempt such a trip; another that it was a “corking” thing to do. The majority looked upon our undertaking with typical New York apathy. “Why do anything so dreary?” If we wanted to see the expositions, then let us take the fastest train, with plenty of books so as to read through as much of the way as possible. Only one, Mr. B., was enthusiastic enough to wish he was going with us. Evidently, though, he thought it a daring adventure, for he suggested an equipment for us that sounded like a relief expedition: a block and tackle, a revolver, a pickaxe and shovel, tinned food—he forgot nothing but the pemmican! However, someone else thought of hardtack, after which a chorus of voices proposed that we stay quietly at home!
“They’ll never get there!” said the banker, with a successful man’s finality of tone. “Unless I am mistaken, they’ll be on a Pullman inside of ten days!”
“Oh, you wouldn’t do that, would you?” exclaimed our one enthusiastic friend, B.
I hoped not, but I was not sure; for, although I had promised an editor to write the story of our experience, if we had any, we were going solely for pleasure, which to us meant a certain degree of comfort, and not to advertise the endurance of a special make of car or tires. Nor had we any intention of trying to prove that motoring in America was delightful if we should find it was not. As for breaking speed records—that was the last thing we wanted to attempt!
“Whatever put it into your head to undertake such a trip?” someone asked in the first pause.
“The advertisements!” I answered promptly. They were all so optimistic, that they went to my head. “New York to San Francisco in an X— car for thirty-eight dollars!” We were not going in an X— car, but the thought of any machine’s running such a distance at such a price immediately lowered the expenditure allowance for our own. “Cheapest way to go to the coast!” agreed another folder. “Travel luxuriously in your own car from your own front door over the world’s greatest highway to the Pacific Shore.” Could any motor enthusiasts resist such suggestions? We couldn’t.
We had driven across Europe again and again. In fact I had in 1898 gone from the Baltic to the Adriatic in one of the few first motor-cars ever sold to a private individual. We knew European scenery, roads, stopping-places, by heart. We had been to all the resorts that were famous, and a few that were infamous, but our own land, except for the few chapter headings that might be read from the windows of a Pullman train, was an unopened book—one that we also found difficulty in opening. The idea of going occurred to us on Tuesday and on Saturday we were to start, yet we had no information on the most important question of all—which route was the best to take. And we had no idea how to find out!