As to the hotels encountered in our month’s jaunt through the wilds, we will deal with them in detail as we proceed with our story—but we may generalize by saying that the average was wonderfully good. In towns of a thousand or less we often found comfortable and well-appointed inns where we could get rooms with private bath, and in the medium-sized places the hotels were often truly metropolitan in size and furnishings. In the smaller places the rates for rooms were low and in the larger towns moderate in comparison with city charges. Nearly all the hotels, however, were operated on the so-called European plan—you pay separately for room and meals—and the “high cost of living” was usually strongly in evidence in the restaurants. Although the touring season was nearly past when we began our trip, many resorts being closed at Tahoe and elsewhere, we found the hotels surprisingly well patronized and in a few cases we secured accommodations with difficulty.
Not being familiar with the hotels, it was not always practical to wire for reservation—a practice worth while where one has the necessary information. Sometimes we could get a tip from the hotel people as to the best stopping-place in the next town, but this did not always prove reliable, as the inn-keepers sometimes let personal reasons influence them to recommend a second-rate hotel. Neither can the average hotel directory be depended upon; many of the towns in the section we covered are not even listed and improvement marches so rapidly in this country that any information a few months old may be out of date. We found fine hotels under construction in two or three towns and they are likely to spring up almost overnight anywhere in this country. So, if one is uncertain, perhaps as good a plan as any is to wait until the day’s destination is reached and then make inquiries. This is usually safe if you do not arrive too late in the day; we planned our runs, as a rule, to bring us in well before dark and in several cases we saw later arrivals turned away from our hotel. We reached one good-sized town, where there is only one first-class hotel, about four o’clock in the afternoon and the landlord told us he turned away no fewer than thirty would-be guests after our arrival.
We might remark here that we almost invariably carried our noonday luncheon with us and ate it amidst the best surroundings we could discover at the time. Often no place was at hand anywhere near the luncheon hour where a meal could be secured, or if there happened to be it generally proved a poor one, while a few nicely made sandwiches, with fruit, nearly always to be found in this country, and hot coffee from our thermos bottles, cost less than hotel meals and was far more satisfactory; besides, this plan consumed less time and gave us the advantage of enjoying the great out-of-doors, often with a magnificent scene before us.
As I have intimated, we met a good many fellow-motorists who carried the out-of-door idea to a still greater extent, for they had with them complete camping outfits, including the tents which sheltered them at nightfall. In some parts of the country very delightful camping sites could be found with trees and clear spring water near at hand; but there were long stretches of road where none of these conveniences existed and nothing save barren, stony soil or sagebrush-studded sand greeted the wayfarer’s eyes. Occasionally we passed campers who were making the best of such surroundings, but they did not present the cheerful appearance of those who had lighted upon some grassy glade under a group of fragrant balsam pines. A goodly number of the campers were hunters, for we were in the midst of the season in California and Oregon—we ourselves saw several deer by the roadside and occasionally started a long-tailed pheasant or jack-rabbit from cover. Still more numerous were the beautiful California quail which frequently arose in large flocks as our car brushed through some dense thicket that skirted the roadside. Considering the long distance we traveled through virgin wildernesses, however, we saw little of wild life.
If the hotels along our route averaged quite moderate in charges, the garages did their best to even things up; gasoline is, indeed, a precious fluid in this country, prices ranging from thirty to fifty cents per gallon. We paid the latter figure only once, but thirty-five and forty cents was quite common and lubricating oil was at least fifty per cent above the San Francisco price. When one recalls that in many of these towns supplies have to come by motor truck for long distances, perhaps these high prices are justified. Garage charges for our car ran from fifty to seventy-five cents per night. Fortunately, we are not able to speak from experience as to the cost of repair work, but the average garage seemed very well equipped to take care of anything in this line.
As we have already intimated, only an inconsiderable mileage of the roads covered by our tour has as yet been improved. Most of the counties that we traversed in Northern California and Oregon are vast in extent and but thinly populated. For instance, Lassen and Modoc Counties in California have respectively 4531 and 3823 square miles, with a population of 4802 for the former and 6191 for the latter named. Some of the Oregon counties would not show so great a population in proportion to their area. It would be folly to expect such sparsely inhabited communities, entirely without large cities, to be able to match the great bond issues of the counties of Central and Southern California. They have done much, everything considered, but so vast are the distances and so great the engineering difficulties that the main effort has been to keep the present roads in passable condition rather than to build new ones. A veteran motorist told me that he had covered a good part of these northern roads several years ago and that in going over them a second time recently he could not note any great improvement. Better bridges have been built and the surfacing improved in places, but little has been done to widen the roads or to eliminate the heavy grades. If fine highways with moderate gradients and curves ever penetrate these natural fastnesses, the state will have to do the work.
ON THE LOWER COLUMBIA RIVER HIGHWAY
From photo by Fred H. Kiser, Portland, Oregon
The present plans of the California Highway Commission contemplate the improvement of the Coast Route—though, with the exception of about a hundred miles, it runs a goodly distance from the coast—practically to the Oregon line—and some of the grading in Humboldt and Mendocino Counties is already done. Much work has also been done on the Pacific Highway, which pursues its course through the central part of the state and branches from this are projected to the county seats of each of the eastern tier of counties. Nothing, however, is promised for the extreme eastern counties in the way of an improved road northward from Lake Tahoe and roughly following the Nevada, California & Oregon Railroad to the Oregon border. Probably such a highway would not be justified, for the population is very scant and the country barren and poor, though it has much to interest the tourist for all that. With the completion of the new highways, much of the present road will be practically abandoned and while this is a consummation devoutly to be wished from most viewpoints, the tourist of the future will miss many of the most glorious mountain vistas that human eye has ever rested upon. For the only way to realize the majesty of the mountains is to climb the mountains, and though that is sometimes strenuous and even dangerous work, it is not without its reward to one who delights in these giant hills.