I began to feel uncertain and let down, but I said, “Hundreds of people have motored across.”
“Hundreds and thousands of people have done things that it would kill you to do. I have seen immigrants eating hunks of fat pork and raw onions. Could you? Of course people have gone across, men with all sorts of tackle to push their machines over the high places and pull them out of the deep places; men who themselves can sleep on the roadside or on a barroom floor. You may think ‘roughing it’ has an attractive sound, because you have never in your life had the slightest experience of what it can be. I was born and brought up out there and I know.” She quietly but firmly folded the map and handed it to the clerk. “I am sorry,” she said, “if you really wanted to go! By and by maybe if they ever build macadam roads and put up good hotels—but even then it would be deadly dull.”
For about five minutes I thought I had better give it up, and I called up my editor. “It looks as though we could not get much farther than the Mississippi.”
“All right,” he said, cheerfully, “go as far as the Mississippi. After all, your object is merely to find out how far you can go pleasurably! When you find it too uncomfortable, come home!”
What We Finally Carried
No sooner had he said that than my path seemed to stretch straight and unencumbered to the Pacific Coast. If we could get no further information, we would start for Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and St. Louis, as we had many friends in these cities, and get new directions from there, but as a last resort I went to the office of a celebrated touring authority and found him at his desk.
“I would like to know whether it will be possible for me to go from here to San Francisco by motor?”
“Sure, it’s possible! Why isn’t it?”