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The trip extended from June 21 to July 28, the first two weeks of which consisted of a two-car caravan with Edmund Jaeger, Russ Bailey and me riding in Mr. Jaeger's Ford, and Bill Thorpe and Clarence Cree in Thorpe's car. Bailey, Cree and I were students at Riverside Junior College, and Thorpe, visiting from England, was a graduate student at the University of California. Edmund Jaeger was not known then as Dr. Jaeger, so I'll refer to him here the way we respectfully addressed him: Mr. Jaeger. As everyone who has traveled with Mr. Jaeger knows, he was the quintessential teacher. Being in his company was an unavoidable education. If I use genus and specific names in this piece, they will be those he told me, and if any are wrong, I didn't hear clearly or they've fallen victim to the penchant of taxonomists for revision.
We had ample time for planning, so Russ and I, lacking the fancy trappings common among campers today, made our own sleeping bags, following a design drawn for us by Mr. Jaeger. We bought pieces of canvas, cut them to shape, had buckles riveted on at a tent-making shop, and used the result to hold folded blankets and a pillow. Cooking equipment was provided by Mr. Jaeger, but Russ and I brought along 22 caliber rifles thinking we might be able to bag a rabbit occasionally for dinner.
Thorpe wrote a superb account of the portion of the trip in which he and Cree participated. Written as a letter to his mother, the letter is included in Son of the Living Desert, by Raymond E. Ryckman and James L. Zackrison, pp. 139-149. I'm including here my journal account of the same part of the trip because much of it is from a different perspective. Many years after the trip, I had the pleasure of visiting Dr. Thorpe at his laboratory in Cambridge where he was engaged in a study of bird calls and songs, using recordings.
Unlike Thorpe, who wisely put his recollections in writing soon after the trip, I'm writing this more than 70 years after the event. It is essentially my journal of the trip.
June 21 (Thursday)
We packed this morning and took off for Nevada, going through Victorville and Barstow.
June 22 (Friday)
We slept last night near Valley Wells at the base of Clark Mountain and were up by about 4:00 this morning. We got underway quickly because Mr. Jaeger is not one to tolerate desert heat unnecessarily. But we allowed time early in the morning for a spin on the dry lake in the northern part of Ivanpah Valley just before crossing the California-Nevada line. We came into Las Vegas about 9:00 o'clock and cooled off by stretching out under the cottonwoods on the lawn of the Clark County courthouse. The number of fashionably dressed women on the streets and in the stores of this small dusty town is startling but visible evidence of Nevada's reputation as a haven for unhappy wives. A woman wanting to shake off her husband can escape the rigid restraints of other states by residing in Nevada for 90 days. Our stay was less than 60 minutes.
We continued north to the ranch of Mr. Jaeger's friend, Mr. MacFarland, located at a beautiful oasis called Indian Springs. The artesian well flows about 60 inches of water the year round. There are numbers of cottonwood, willows, and mesquite trees, an apple orchard, vegetable gardens, two or three ponds stocked with fish, and a large reservoir for irrigation water in which we later took a swim.
June 23 (Saturday)
Mr. MacFarland told us that the mountains just north of the ranch--the Pintwater Range--has the largest band of wild mountain sheep in the United States, about 700. They get their water from the natural rock tanks that fill during rains. He said that there are no deer in the Pintwater Range, and across the valley to the south in the Charleston Mountains, there are deer but no sheep. Willow Creek, in the northern end of the Charlestons is the only stream in these mountains that is cold enough for trout, but due to the scarcity of streams with trout in the region Willow Creek has been nearly fished out. He said that a stretch of road between Indian Springs and Tonopah, called the "inside route" is 173 miles long and devoid of human habitation. He made a survey of Nevada for artesian water, and found several valleys where there is abundant water but no settlers. An area called Railroad Valley has lots of water that is unused.
June 24 (Sunday)
Along the lower slopes of the Charleston Mountains there are thick stands of juniper and piņon and also mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius), small trees that are numerous around our camp at about an altitude of 7,200 feet. There are also numbers of yellow pines, a variety of Pinus ponderosa, the cone of which is smaller than that of the ponderosa pines of the San Jacinto Mountains. Also here are some white or silver firs (Abies concolor) and a few small white oaks (Quercus gamboli) growing to a height of 12 or 15 feet. A spring about 100 yards from our camp flows 2 or 3 inches of cold water. Also numerous seepages are nearby. The spring is full of caddis fly larvae, and planarian and nematode worms. The rock is almost entirely limestone. We found two holes, one of them in solid rock, that looked like they might have been carved out by underground water flows. While exploring a canyon, I found some fossil snails and several snail shells about 3/32 inch in diameter. They are the same as some found by Mr. Jaeger. He believes that they are a new find for the region if not a new species. In late afternoon at dusk we saw several small birds, probably tanagers or goldfinches, catching flies. The birds would see an insect at a distance of 30 or 40 feet, fly toward the insect, then fold its wings for a graceful dive or an upward lunge.
June 25 (Monday)
This morning we climbed to the top of the ridge where there is a natural rock bridge at over 10,000 feet. When standing on or under the bridge we could see the Pintwater Mountains across the valley to the northeast and looking across a wooded valley to the southwest we could see the Panamint Mountains on the other side of Death Valley.
The yellow pines on the lower slopes give way to foxtail pines (Pinus aristatus) and limber pines (Pinus flexilus) higher up on the side of the mountain. At the higher altitudes of our climb we saw some of the low-spreading creeping juniper (Juniperus communis). Mr. Jaeger says that this occurs in the Charlestons and east of here down into Mexico.
June 26 (Tuesday)
After coming back to camp, Russ and I went rabbit hunting as a result of which this morning we had our first fresh meat. We broke camp and went back to MacFarland's ranch, had another swim and proceeded back to Las Vegas. On the way, we noticed a boy running across the desert toward us waving his arms wildly. We stopped and waited, eager to help anyone in distress, especially out in this part of the parched earth. As he approached we saw that he was indeed miserable. Dirty. unshaven and ragged, he aroused our sympathy. When he reached our car, he gasped hoarsely, "You got any smokin." Mr. Jaeger said curtly, "No," and drove on. The poor fellow had no way of knowing that tobacco is high on Mr. Jaeger's verboten list. When I looked back I saw him standing forlornly at the side of the road until we drew out of sight.
June 27 (Wednesday)
We stopped for camp last night at the dry lake east of Las Vegas where Russ and I limbered up our muscles with a cross country run in the light of the half moon. A short distance from Las Vegas we had a long distance view of the Valley of Fire, which consists of deep red cliffs and spires rising up in fantastic shapes. Petrified logs, some broken up, lay scattered around the valley. There is a large band of wild horses that go down to the Moapa River to drink.
This morning we visited the Mormon settlement of Bunkerville on the Virgin River. The Virgin River--a tributary of the Colorado River--winds through Utah, Arizona, and Nevada. At one place it cuts a spectacular gorge through the Beaver Dam Mountains where it gives the appearance of having done this either as the mountains slowly rose or conceivably by cutting a tunnel through the mountain after which the top of it collapsed. Mormon settlements are all along the river, and the dark green of the trees and fields is in strikingly beautiful contrast to the bright red soil. The houses are all brick or stone, all of good construction, but some of them look as if they badly need repairs. The shingles on some of them are curled up almost double, and the old wooden fences have been repaired only enough to keep them from falling flat. Our route cut through a corner of Arizona and up into Utah. All the towns we went through were small settlements in which the main streets are little more than cow paths. We stopped at the Mormon settlement of Toquerville and called on a lady who is about 90 years old. She had been one of the wives of a man who had 20 wives, all at the same time. He had married this woman as well as her two daughters. No doubt he was a very capable man to support such a large family. His house had rows of bedrooms. The woman said he fled to Mexico with his 20 wives and their children when they were driven out during the "insurrections."
We relaxed for a while in St. George, Utah, where I indulged in a huge milkshake for 20 cents. We went to look at the Mormon temple, which we were told is one of only seven such temples, five of which are in Utah. The other two are in Arizona and Hawaii. This one is made of white sandstone and lava rock and finished inside with hand-sawed wood from the mountains. It took many years to build, and it is said that the Mormons used a great deal of gold on the finish work. There is a junior college here--Dixie College--that is a small one, but a new building is being constructed by the students themselves.
The route we took between Hurricane, Utah, and our camp in the Kaibab Forest is along the most spectacularly beautiful country I've ever seen. It is high plateau, mostly good green cattle country with a scattered growth of piņon pines. Bordering the valleys are brilliantly colored sandstone cliffs with pine trees growing on the flat tops and sometimes on the steep sides. The soil is mostly reddish but the color is made less intense by a covering of brush and grass. The geology of the country tells that layers of sediment were deposited by the sea that once covered the whole area. In contrast to the Charleston Mountains where layers of limestone indicate that they were deposited at considerable depth, the sandstone in this region indicates that the sediments were nearer the surface, that is, deposited in a more shallow sea.
June 28 (Thursday)
We camped in the Kaibab Forest at an opening in the trees on the edge of a green meadow several miles long and about a half mile wide. The Kaibab Forest, which Mr. Jaeger says is the largest yellow pine forest in the world, is on a rolling plateau. The lower parts are covered with piņon pines and small junipers. Higher up there are groves of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), the first of these trees I've ever seen. The beauty of the aspens is striking, especially when there is a wind. The leaves are nature's sequins. Shiny green on one side and silver-grey on the other, they dance around in the breeze like so many mirrors. The trunks are white and usually crooked, giving the appearance of being wobbly in the knees.
We've seen several deer. A buck was standing about 50 yards from our camp when we drove up last night, and a young buck came to within a few yards of our camp this morning. On the way to camp we saw a white-tailed tree squirrel, which Mr. Jaeger says is very rare and known only in the Kaibab forest. There are several kinds of trees around our camp: whiter firs. quaking aspens, yellow pines, creeping junipers, and Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii).
June 29 (Friday)
Russ got a bad sunburn in the Charlestons. The red of his back rivaled the sandstone cliffs until he started to peel, but it is still sore. He tried to treat it by rubbing soap on his back, but that made it so excruciatingly painful that he promptly washed it off. I shouldn't have laughed. I stripped and lay on my stomach in the sun for quite a while, but I underestimated the intensity of the sun's rays at this high altitude and clear sky. I'm now pretty red and sore where my trunks should have been. It hurts like the devil to sit down.
June 30 (Saturday)
Every evening at dusk the deer come out of the forest into the meadow to feed. There were more than 20 feeding when it became too dark to see them well, and they were still coming out. Another deer came close to camp early this morning. I was awakened this morning by a squirrel chattering. He was making a lot of noise trying to tear a copy of Thorpe's London Times and finally ran off with a sheet of the paper.
Bill Thorpe told us that he had never eaten watermelon (in England they call cantaloupes watermelons). And until he came to this country he had never seen popcorn or waffles. He said that the students at Cambridge University must wear gowns in all classrooms except laboratories. As soon as they leave class they may take their gowns off and carry them, but they must wear caps and gowns when out at night. They must pay a one penny fine if they come in after 12 o'clock without permission. There is a proctor with two bulldogs--husky fellows and good runners--hired by the college to keep order on the streets at night. Each student has a living room and a bedroom allotted to him by the college. Most of the students have bicycles that they ride to and from classes. The bicycles are considered more or less common property, and may be borrowed if returned to where they were taken.
July 1 (Sunday)
We had planned to hike down to the Colorado River yesterday but learned that it was 13 miles of steep trail, about twice what we thought it would be. So we decided that our start was not early enough for the round trip. Instead we would go as far as Roaring Springs, about five miles down the trail. The water gushes from several places in the side of the cliff and drops about 100 yards. The water tumbles down the mountainside and spreads over the flat rocks, falling in broad sheets of white spray, A little below Roaring Springs, Bright Angel Creek joins Roaring Creek, and below there is a dam that sends some of the water down a wooden pipe consisting of planks held together with iron bands, to a power house with two large generators. The plant supplies electricity for the hotel on the rim and for the pumps that lift water from roaring Creek to a reservoir above the hotel. The pumps produce a pressure of 1,750 pounds per square inch and lift the water through a 5-inch pipe from an elevation of about 5,000 feet to over 8,100 feet. We walked on the wooden pipe from the dam to the power plant and back, a distance of about 1-1/2 miles. After lunch, we took a dive into the stream at the dam. The water was so cold that I couldn't get out soon enough. The stream has beautiful pools with an abundance of trout. I wished that we had brought fishing tackle.
The excellent trail to Roaring Springs was made for both men and mules, and for horses, and I presume it's the same the rest of the way to the Colorado River. It varies from four to six feet wide and is lined on the outside border with stones. At places, the trail has been blasted out of solid rock. In one place the trail forms a tunnel of about 20 feet through a rock ledge. At other places, the rock projects several feet over the trail.
We were told at the pumping plant that the 5 miles to Roaring Springs is the steepest part of the trail, and that the other 9 miles to the river is easy going. It seems that with a slightly earlier start we would have had time to go to the river after all, but at that stage we didn't want to hazard the trail at night.
After we got back from Roaring Springs we drove out to Point Sublime, which gives a wonderful view of the canyon. We could see the muddy-looking Colorado River 5,000 feet below.
With binoculars, we could see the hotel on the South Rim across the canyon, and the water towers were discernable with the naked eye. From our vantage we had a panoramic view of the canyon and cliffs composed of red, yellow, and greenish sandstone. If a person were to fall from some of the projecting cliffs, he would fall 2 or 3 thousand feet without a bump.
When we returned to camp about 7:30, we counted 123 deer in the valley below camp. One group of 55 deer were about 250 yards from camp. During the daytime we spotted many five-point and six-point bucks and a few does. The horns of the bucks are in velvet this time of year. We saw two does with fawns about two feet tall. The fawns are brownish-grey with white spots on their backs and enormous ears. I examined the tracks of one of the fawns. They were about 3/4 inch long. All the deer are very fat, and some were so tame that they didn't stop eating when we drove within a few yards of them. The deer have a way of bounding when startled. They hit the ground with all four feet at the same time and leap several feet high with each bound.
We rode to the canyon and to Point Sublime in Bill Thorpe's car. On the way to Point Sublime a small porcupine ran across the road, and on the way back we saw a larger one. It climbed a fir tree when we chased it. When it was disturbed, it raised the fur on its back, baring the quills which could inflict a severe wound. Mr. Jaeger says the porcupines here live largely on pine needles.
Gasoline cost us 35 cents a gallon at Fredonia, 36 cents at the edge of the Kaibab, 45 cents at the V.T. Ranch Resort, and 50 cents at the hotel on the Rim.
July 2 (Monday)
We left our camp in the Kaibab on Sunday (July 1) afternoon and camped lower down in the piņons. Russ and I each found sets of large deer antlers within a few yards of camp. They were in such good shape that we would have liked to take them as trophies, but there's no room for that. We had to stop in Fredonia on July 2 for some work on the cars. The road from Fredonia to Kanab is through spectacular sandstone hills. Part of the scenery are the numerous Indians and cowboys.
We stopped for lunch after leaving Kanab, and forgot Mr. Jaeger's cooking irons. He felt pretty bad about it. He had carried them since 1914. Each of the iron rods had a hole near the end, and the two were fastened together with a short chain.
Note: The incident was an impressive demonstration of Mr. Jaeger's power of observation and memory. I learned after we got home that he had remembered the name on the mailbox near where we stopped for lunch, which was within sight of a ranch house, and he had written to them asking if they would find and send the irons to him. He enclosed $5 for postage and their trouble. The irons promptly arrived in a neat package.
We turned north and drove through the Dixie National Forest to Cedar Breaks--much smaller than the Grand Canyon but prettier. It's a deep canyon with spires of red and white. There was snow in the bottom of the canyon and on the upper edge. From Cedar Breaks we drove to Cedar City, the most beautiful mountain drive I've ever seen. The limestone cliffs rise to enormous heights on either side. The road follows the banks of a stream all the way to the valley, with pines high up on the sides of the cliffs.
It was dark when we got to Cedar City, so the best we could do for a camp site was a flat place on the edge of town. Mr. Jaeger awoke me early in the morning to show me Venus and Jupiter within a degree of each other. Both planets were amazingly brilliant. When we awoke at daybreak we found that we had camped in the city dump yard. Despite the dump, Cedar City is the best looking town we've seen on the trip.
July 3 (Tuesday)
We continued west back into Nevada and turned north through Pioche, an old mining camp. In the afternoon, Russ and I drove Thorpe's car to a likely hunting spot and shot six jackrabbits and one cottontail. There were so many scorpions on the ground at our camp that we slept on a gravel pile that the Nevada road department had kindly left for us.
July 4 (Wednesday)
We went to Geyser Ranch near the base of the Wheeler Mountains and camped in a big canyon in the mountains south of Ely.
July 5 (Thursday)
This morning we went into Ely, a copper mining town. About 2,000 men are employed in the mine here. The copper pit turns out about 1,400 tons of ore every day. This is the toughest looking town we've seen. Roughly half the business houses on one side of the street are saloons. The red light district is said to be a mile long. The Miner's Club seems to be the most popular, but this being the day after the July 4th celebration, the whole town seemed to be in a hangover. People we saw on he street were a pretty scurvy looking bunch. Mr. Jaeger went to see the secretary of the chamber of commerce, and even he was soused. We didn't stay long.
Thorpe and Cree left us here to return home. Mr. Jaeger, Bailey, and I turned east through the Snake Mountain Range to Baker on the east side of Wheeler Peak, which at an elevation of 13,061 feet is more than a thousand feet higher than Charleston Peak. These mountains still have a lot of snow and one glacier that lasts year round..
July 6 (Friday)
Our camp is on a creek near the cabin of a miner who is guarding his tungsten mine, the tunnel of which is higher up on the mountain side. The miner, a friendly fellow named Yonson (Johnson), says he has lived up here for 20 years. The ceiling of his cabin is so low that one can hardly stand straight for fear of bumping one's head on the log roof. He said that he had canvas covering the ceiling but the "shipmunks" ate it away. He had piled about a foot of dirt on the flat roof as protection against the elements and to keep it from leaking.
The congenial Swede offered to take us up to his mine. He wanted to take his two burros to the mine, so he jumped on one of them. Mr. Jaeger asked him if the other burro would ride. "Sure, he yomp a leetle bit, but he's fine ride." So Mr. Jaeger hopped on, and the yomping began. The burro turned and started back down the trail, bucking like I assume a burro should. With each jump, Mr. Jaeger bounced a little farther back on the burro's rump until he bounced off. Mr. Jaeger had the presence of mind to hold tightly his botany press, which is 100 years old and which he treasures highly. Mr. Jaeger must have been bruised, but he never complained although he didn't respond to jokes about the bucking burro. Russ and I took turns riding the unwilling steed part way to the mine.
July 7 (Saturday)
The stream flowing past our camp and the cabin comes from a small lake below the mine. There are still snow banks on the edge of the lake. We climbed to the top of the ridge above the mine, which is about 11,000 feet. We could see the peak which looked to be almost 2,500 feet higher than we were. On the ridge there was a hollowed out place with stones placed around it. We thought it must be a shelter, but Mr. Johnson told us that the Indians made it as a blind for shooting mountain sheep.
The mine was actively worked when there was a high demand for tungsten, a metal used for tungsten steel, an extremely hard alloy. The inside of the shaft is dripping wet. Mr. Johnson told us that when the mine is operating the crude ore is taken on burros down the trail to the mill where it is crushed and dried. The ore is then piled on cowhides and taken down the steepest part of the mountain by burros pulling it over the snow. The ore is hauled by wagons to the railroad, which takes it to San Francisco. Then it is loaded on a boat and shipped to the east coast where the ore brings $1,100 a ton.
Mr. Jaeger took a picture of Russ and me taking a snow bath by the lake at the mine. A cold wind was blowing, and the water was so cold we didn't think we could stand it long enough to get the dirt off, so we decided to wait until we got back to camp to take a swim in the creek, actually not much warmer.
Mr. Johnson told us that in the low mountains east of Snake Range there is a large band of pronghorns. He invited us to dinner tonight, and to ensure that we would eat on clean dishes we took our own plates, bowls, cups, and tools with us. But when we arrived our good host had the table already set. The dishes looked clean so we "fell to." The food was delicious. He had prepared a mulligan stew composed of venison, potatoes, and onions. The venison tasted much like beef but had some of the flavor of mutton.
This mountain is mostly granite, and the water is the best that we've had anywhere on the trip. Large aspens grow in the lower part of Snake Canyon. Higher up, there are white firs, Alderman spruce (also called red pines), limber pines (also called black pines), and Douglas spruce (balsams). Mountain mahogany and sage brush grow on the slopes as high as 8 or 9 thousand feet. It is very much colder here at 6 or 7 thousand feet than in the Kaibab at 9 thousand feet.
July 8 (Sunday)
The Swede told us that there are snowshoe rabbits here in the winter. They are bigger than a dog and when they run they jump fifty feet and slide 75 feet in the snow. It seems that among other attributes, he spins a good yarn. He told us another story about how after the copper mine at Ely was flooded, when they took up the steel tram rails they had turned to copper. Russ laughed and ridiculed the story as preposterous. I defended Mr. Johnson's credibility by relating my experience on the ranch where I grew up. It was the practice to treat barley seed to protect the plants from smut by dipping sacks of the seed in a vat of copper sulfate. We would amuse ourselves by dipping a knife blade or a piece of steel in the vat for a short while, after which it would come out plated with gleaming red copper. Russ didn't believe me either.
Note: Soon after returning to Riverside, Russ came to me and said that he had learned that there was some truth to the Swede's story (and by implication mine) because copper is higher in the electromotive series than iron and will replace it.
Russ and I went fishing this afternoon with makeshift tackle. I had two bites at my bait, and another jumped out of the water and dove around my bait like a porpoise, but didn't take it. Russ caught a rainbow trout about 7 inches long.
July 9 (Monday)
We bid the miner goodbye this morning and headed southeast toward Beaver, Utah. We passed through Baker, Garrison, Frisco, which is a deserted mining town, and Milford. Most of the residences we've seen are log cabins, probably standing since Brigham Young's time. The miner gave us some venison as a going away present, and it sure did put us on the run. After we had eaten most of it, we found maggots in it. We stopped in Minersville to buy vegetables, but the stores don't carry them because everybody has a vegetable garden. We made camp a few miles north of Beaver in the junipers. This evening we listened to the booming of the night hawks (Chordeiles minor) as they made their diving swoops for insects.
July 10 (Tuesday)
We got up early this morning and drove to Cove Fort, then east through a very pretty pass to Sevier. The canyon, which is of red sandstone, has a creek at the bottom lined with trees, some of them pines, almost the full length of the canyon. From Sevier, we turned north again toward Richfield. Practically all the houses in the countryside are log cabins, as are some of the residences in the towns. There are lots of milk cows.
We had our first tire trouble today. A bolt about 6 inches long went into a rear tire, so we had it fixed in Richfield. While there I bought a couple of newspapers and learned that my brother Bob had made the Olympic team in the 400 meter hurdles. Continuing north, just out of Salina we met two men who said they were on a vacation while their wives were in the hospital. Mr. Jaeger asked, "Was it an accident?" Silence, then "No." Nothing more was said, but as we drove off, Mr. Jaeger chuckled about the embarrassed fathers-to-be. We went up Salina Canyon to an altitude of about 8,000 feet and down to the edge of the Painted Desert. We stopped somewhere in no-man's land and ate supper, but the mosquitoes were so thick that we moved on through Castledale and finally made camp after dark a few miles from Price.
July 11 (Wednesday)
Last night the mosquitos were as noisy as airplanes. Mr. Jaeger did not get any sleep. And after the sun came up, gnats were almost as bad as the mosquitos. So not wanting to contribute any more blood to hostile wildlife, we got up and went into Price for Breakfast. Russ bought a new shirt and a pair of Mexican serges here. We ate lunch just after crossing the Green River, the largest tributary of the Colorado River. I saw a magpie and a grossbeak, the first time I ever saw these birds. Moab, it seems to me, is the prettiest valley yet. Before coming to the town of Moab, the road winds down a sandstone canyon. The piņons and junipers in this canyon are the brightest green I've ever seen, probably due to the contrast with the brilliantly red sandstone. Thick stands of Russian thistle growing in the canyon have a turquoise color. Moab lies between tall sandstone cliffs. Our camp in the piņons a short distance above Moab is a pleasant contrast to that of last night.
July 12 (Thursday)
This morning we drove by a natural bridge not over a 100 yards from the road. Between Moab and Monticello the engine got pretty hot. We used all the water in our canteens for the radiator, and that didn't bring the water high enough for it to circulate. We looked for a source of water all along the route, but couldn't find any. It was not a pleasant thought that we might be stranded in the desert without water. So following the heroic example of our intrepid leader, each of us contributed our bladder fluid to the last drop and poured it into the radiator. Nature's cooling fluid gave us a reprieve from extreme inconvenience at best. We managed to coax the car up an incline to the next plateau where providence drenched us in a torrential downpour. Even after deliverance we had to be on guard. The muddy road from Monticello to the Colorado line was so slippery that we were constantly in danger of sliding off into the ditches along the sides of the road.
There are numerous prairie dogs on this stretch of desert. Some lie on the roadside where cars have run over them, leaving them belly up in the sand at the mercy of this desert heat. We saw one tiger rattlesnake lying in the road. Rabbits are thick in Colorado. At camp, Russ and I bagged three cottontails in about half an hour with our 22s.
July 13 (Friday)
We camped last night for the first and probably last time in Colorado. We had rabbit for breakfast. We stopped this morning to buy groceries in Cortez, where we were intrigued by the Navajo Indians walking in single file from one store to another. We saw an old broken down buggy on the Indian reservation, so we stopped and cannibalized it for two rods to use as fire irons. They are just like the set that we lost. We crossed the state line today into New Mexico. Huge sculptured rocks rise from the floor of the desert. Shiprock is a spectacular one. The Indians have a lot of trading posts along the road. We stopped at a trading post in Nova to buy a tire, and after messing it up trying for a half hour to get it mounted on the rim we noticed that it was made for a straight-sided rim instead of a clincher rim like ours. We had paid $10 for the tire, and the trader would give only $7.50 to take it back, so we were out $2.50 for our trouble..
July 14 (Saturday)
We camped last night on the Indian reservation near Gallup, New Mexico. It rained a little, so we moved our sleeping bags inside the tent for the rest of the night. We bought a new tire at Gallup for $9. We crossed the state line into Arizona and were inspected at Holbrook. It started to rain late in the afternoon, and lightning struck all around us, so we kept going looking for a good place to camp and found one in the piņons about 15 miles east of Flagstaff.
July 15 (Sunday)
I awoke early this morning to find that my pillow was on top of an ant hole. The ants were crawling all over by bed and body. When we were just about ready to leave, a stroke of lightning ripped over our heads and crashed into a juniper tree about 50 feet from us. I was awestruck, staring at the shattered tree. Mr. Jaeger's only interest in it was getting away. He instantly jumped into the car and took off so quickly that I was barely able to grab my bag and hop onto the running board on the run. I commented about the old saw that lightning never strikes twice in the same place. Mr. Jaeger said, "I noticed when we got there it had lightning scars."
Mr. Jaeger wanted us to clean up a little before calling on a friend of his in Flagstaff, so we stopped this afternoon about 10 miles from town at a place where Mr. Jaeger and I washed our Mexican serges and Russ donned his new pair. We went up to Dr. Colton's home, named Coyote Range, but when we arrived, the Coltons were gone.
July 16 (Monday)
The Coltons greeted us like visiting royalty. They extended an invitation for us to have dinner and supper with them every day during our stay in Flagstaff. We went downtown this afternoon and got haircuts. Russ and I bought neckties for 49 cents each. We saw Bufo Busby, who is staying in Flagstaff for the summer.
July 17 (Tuesday)
Dr. Colton took us out this morning to some archeological excavations. While we were there they dug up some pottery and some Indian skeletons. In the afternoon we went on a picnic with the Burnhams, friends of the Coltons, and got back after 11 o'clock.
July 18 (Wednesday)
Dr. Colton and the Burnhams took us up into the San Francisco Mountains where we had a barbeque lunch next to a spring. Russ and I, accompanied by Derril, the Colton's young son, climbed to the top of Humphrey Peak, a little over 12,700 feet. At about 2/3 of the way up, it got cloudy, and we could see lightning over on Agassiz. We were slowed down by Derril who was scrambling to keep up, so we almost turned back. A very cold and cloudy wind was blowing on top, and Russ and I had nothing on above the waist but shirts. But we waited for Derril to make it up before taking a short cut down a steep slope of broken shale. We got back to the picnic camp at 5:15 much to the relief of Mr. Jaeger and Dr. Colton.
July 19 (Thursday)
This afternoon we visited the Lowell Observatory. Although we called unannounced, Dr. Slipher was kind enough to take time out to show us several things about the telescope and his work.
Note: The observatory was founded privately by Percival Lowell, a mathematician and astronomer, and a member of the aristocratic Boston family that was part of the inspiration for a famous toast, "Here's to the home of the bean and the cod where the Lowells speak only to Cabots and the Cabots speak only to God." Lowell recruited Dr. Slipher who became director in 1926.
Later we stopped in town, loaded up on groceries, and bought a new tire for the Ford. Dr. Colton told us about a perfectly formed tunnel in the lava mountains about 15 miles from Flagstaff, and after lunch Mrs. Colton showed us her studio and paintings, and Dr. Colton took us to his laboratory and showed us his large white rat culture. He is conducting an experiment to determine if they can inherit acquired characteristics. His procedure is to amputate the forelegs of very young rats, which after healing doesn't impair them from getting around with apparently the same facility and ease as the normal rats. The question is, after numerous generations of amputated rats, since the forelegs are not needed at least in the cage environment, do the progeny have normal or reduced forelimbs? Mrs. Colton took us to a movie this evening.
Note: I never learned the outcome of Dr. Colton's experiment. Many years later I learned that a German biologist, August Weismann, had already conducted a similar experiment using mice. He cut the tails off 1,582 mice over 22 generations and they all continued to have young with full-sized tails.
July 20 (Friday)
I received the first word from home this morning--five letters. Two of them were mailed to Fredonia, forwarded to Ely then to Gallup and finally to Flagstaff.. While I was sitting in the car reading them, Alfred Kuiyama came up and said hello. He's now living on the Hopi reservation. As we were pulling out we saw a fellow with a truck who had a fresh bear hide. He had probably killed the bear in the San Francisco Mountains.
We took the road down Oak Creek, which runs through an exceptionally beautiful red sandstone canyon. Trees, vines and flowers grow rank in the upper part, and farther down the stream
has cut a deep gorge in the sandstone. At about 2 o'clock we stopped and had a refreshing swim in a pool that was about eight feet deep. I had a good soap scrub and felt cleaner than I've been since leaving home. We saw a lot of trout but, unfortunately, were not equipped for fishing. We made camp on Oak Creek about a half mile from Sedona.
July 21 (Saturday)
I got up before 5 o'clock this morning to write some letters. It was very warm last night and some peculiar small ants crawled over us all night. We bought some string beans and a few tomatoes from the farmer who owns the place where we camped. We mailed our letters at Camp Verde, and took a good swim in the Verde River. The little fish in the stream are so numerous that Russ and I managed to catch a couple of small ones with our hands. After heading down into the desert, we went part way onto the Mogollon Plateau and made camp among the yellow pines. The owner of the land that we're camping on came over this evening and talked with us. He told us that he has seen mountain lions, wolves, bears, and wild turkeys in the vicinity. He says the turkeys will be exterminated within a few years because they are being hunted without any regard for law. There are people in the area, he said, who get practically all their food by shooting deer and other game all year round regardless of the season.
July 22 (Sunday)
We left the pines and drove off the Mogollon rim down into the Tonto Basin. As we passed through the tiny settlement of Punkin Center. Mr. Jaeger, who typically has a low tolerance for ignorant distortions of terminology, chuckled about how far back in the woods we had come.
The water in the lake behind Roosevelt Dam is very low. Here we turned west on the Apache Trail, an exceptionally smooth road but with lots of roller coaster ups and downs. The downs were fun, but after we had gone about 6 miles from the dam, we came to a hill so steep that the gas would not feed into the carburetor. We had to go back about 6 or 7 miles to a place where we could fill the gas tank. We ate supper in Phoenix and afterward kept going until 1:30 in the morning when we stopped to camp out on the desert.
Note: The Fords of that day did not have a fuel pump. They depended on gravity feed to the carburetor from a gasoline tank under the front seat. Sometimes when going up a steep hill, if the gas was low the carburetor would be higher than the gas level, so the fuel wouldn't reach it. There was a place on the old road to Idyllwild where drivers of Ford model Ts would often have to turn around and back up to a turnaround point where the road was not as steep.
July 23 (Monday)
We were up and away by about 5 o'clock and got into Yuma in time for a late breakfast. The road into Yuma is awful except for a short bit of pavement. In fact, the dusty road across Arizona from Phoenix is bad washboard all the way. Most cars traveling in our direction passed us going at least twice as fast. The idea is that the faster you go, the less you feel it. When I was driving I kept wanting to experiment to see if I could hit a harmonic that would be less bone jarring. Nothing worked, fast or slow. And Mr. Jaeger prefers not to beat up on the car.
We crossed the Colorado River into California and set our watches back an hour. We ate lunch in El Centro and also bought groceries there.. I saw King, a classmate of my brother at Pomona College. We camped a few miles past Jacumba. I sent my guns back to Riverside for fear of trouble getting them across the Mexican border.
July 24 (Tuesday)
We saw a brush fire down Campo way, so decided to keep going and cross the border at Tijuana. In San Diego, we saw Donavan, a boy from Riverside High. He said he was going to summer school. At the border they asked a few questions, gave us a permit, and let us go on. We traveled down the coast until about 8 o'clock looking for a good place to camp. We hadn't gone far when a drunk customs officer asked, between belches, where we were going. After telling him, he said, "Beat it."
July 25 (Wednesday)
We got to Ensenada before noon, gave the town a looking over, and bought a few things. At Ensenada a person can buy books written in Spanish, handmade Mexican baskets, pottery, feather work, horsehair work, and lots of trinkets. The owner of the filling station said that it's easy to sneak a gun across the border, and that he hunts all the time without a hunting license. He said that below Ensenada there are lots of deer and that they are seen often from the road. We drove southeast of Ensenada and camped among the oak trees.
Mr. Jaeger clarified for us the terminology of "sagebrush." The one that is commonly called sagebrush throughout most of the west, Artemisia tridentata, is not a true sage. One of the true sages, Salvia apiania, or white sage, has long grey leaves, and blossoms on long stalks. The leaves of the purple sage, Salvia incana, has leaves much like those of the white sage and fairly large purple or blue flowers.
July 26 (Thursday)
On our return, we took the wagon road north through the hills. There are oaks and some pines along most of the way. The countryside strikingly resembles the vicinity of the San Jacinto Mountains. There's an abundance of what Mr. Jaeger calls bastard cedar (Adenostoma sparsefolia) and creosote bush (Larrea glutinosa). The creosote bush, common throughout the Sonoran desert, is often erroneously called greasewood
When on Monday we came over the ridge from Imperial Valley to San Diego, we struck the coolest weather we've had on the trip. And it was cool and foggy in Ensenada, but as we go inland it is becoming warmer. There are a few cattle ranches and Mexican huts along the route. Most of the streams are dry, and fires have burned over large areas of the brush. We were told that the people never fight the fires because a burnt-over area is good for grass. We killed our second rattlesnake, a black fellow who had lost his rattles. We arrived at Tecate on the border about an hour after the gate was supposed to be closed at 5 PM, but the customs officer let us go across anyway. We camped a couple of miles this side of the line on American soil.
July 27 (Friday)
On the way to San Diego this morning we saw three does and a fawn in a canyon just below the road. We stopped at La Jolla and went through the Scripps Museum and Aquarium. While there we met Mr. Saran and his son Chris from Riverside. We camped in the oaks on an Indian reservation a few miles from Temecula.
July 28 (Saturday)
To Riverside.
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