The 1914 Blue Book was out of print, and the new one for this year not issued. I went to various information bureaus—some of those whose advertisements had sounded so encouraging—but their personal answers were more optimistic than definite. Then a friend telegraphed for me to the Lincoln Highway Commission asking if road conditions and hotel accommodations were such that a lady who did not want in any sense to “rough it” could motor from New York to California comfortably.
We wasted a whole precious thirty-six hours waiting for this answer. When it came, a slim typewritten enclosure helpfully informed us that a Mrs. Somebody of Brooklyn had gone over the route fourteen months previously and had written them many glowing letters about it. As even the most optimistic prospectus admitted that in 1914 the road was as yet not a road, and hotels along the sparsely settled districts had not been built, it was evident that Mrs. Somebody’s idea of a perfect motor trip was independent of roads or stopping-places.
Meanwhile I had been told that the best information was to be had at the touring department of the Automobile Club. So I went there.
A very polite young man was answering questions with a facility altogether fascinating. He told one man about shipping his car—even the hours at which the freight trains departed. To a second he gave advice about a suit for damages; for a third he reduced New York’s traffic complications to simplicities in less than a minute; then it was my turn:
“I would like to know the best route to San Francisco.”
“Certainly,” he said. “Will you take a seat over here for a moment?”
“This is the simplest thing in the world,” I thought, and opened my notebook to write down a list of towns and hotels and road directions. He returned with a stack of folders. But as I eagerly scanned them, I found they were all familiarly Eastern.
“Unfortunately,” he said suavely, “we have not all our information yet, and we seem to be out of our Western maps! But I can recommend some very delightful tours through New England and the Berkshires.”
“That is very interesting, but I am going to San Francisco.”