a-den

Yoyage

LIK~ MOST people in California.my wIfe Norma and r came

from less comfortable climes-shefrom Conne<:ticut, I from IllinoisThe famili"s are far away, and thevisiting problem is a hard one 10solve. Many days. and many dol·lars separate Los Angel"n"" fromtheir people in such rar places.

One day r was over in Glendale.and I fen in love again, Now. or­dinarily that's a caNless thinglor a married man to do. but thiswas different ~ a good thing allround, especially for Norma. Yousee, I fell for a lovely, light_as·a_feather, all-aluminum trailer - a16-£001 b<!auty, ready and willingto go anywhere, anytime. So Isigned for life.

Now that rna>" """m very sillyto you, if you've never taken alandship to your heart, but if yougive yourself a chance you mayfind out it's true, and I hope youdo

First. let me tell you that I'm ina very peculiar business - I docommercials On television. For thepast th ...... years I'd never had aday oft". Well, ROt really off-if Ididn't nave a show to do, then I hadsomething to memorize. That'swhy I said I never got a vacation.But whoever said that all goodthings come to an end was SO right.especially wheN broadcasting isconcerned. In mid-December Ifound myself about to be showless.It's a normal thing in show busi­ness, unpleasant, but a thing t"expect fr"()m time to time. For awhile I felt sorry for myself, thenI felt relief at having some freetime. Suddenly 1 Nalized that freetime, plus the trailer. plus the hol­idays, plus Norma's folks couldadd up to something wonderfulThe weather might be cold, evendangerous, but we could make thetrip in comfort without goingbroke, thanks to the landship. Ithought about it for a day or so.then told Norma

"Oh. wonderfuL But do youthink we can do it at this time ofthe year~"

"Sure we can. May have to takeit easy in spots. If necessary. wecould go far south, turn north fr"()mAtlanta, and fr"()m Washington onwe could practically walk, if wehad to"

So we planned the trip. hegin_ner fashion. How eJs..? Nobody'san old salt even before the maiden\·oyage. You learn fast. though!

We anticipated what we could,then stowed. The permanentdouble bed in the rear of our trail­er has lots of storage space under

(Continued 0" page SO)

1)......,"'I,"r. 195;;

Part I of a Trailer Trip

by Ralph B. Reid

21

M"iden Voy"ge(Conci ed /TO ... 1"'9<' Zl)

iL Into it piled enough cannedmeal$. vegetables, fish, fruit, cab.broead, aDd so on to stock a smallsto"'. Vel in ""ery $late throughwhich we passed the", were lots oftowns with lou of $10...... just filledwith food, fresh food, even! So the

I

canned goods in the stern madethe round trip almOlit untouched.

I Then, too. when it came to stow­ing OUr dothes. we did it big. Intothe doset we stuffed a fine ward­roboo for not Or <:old weather, for~"', for dress occasions. I final-ly tot the door ""-d, but it couldhave $layed closed the whole tripuo:ept thai we bpt the eon!t'e iaron the top shelf!

Finally we were Naay to go ex_cept for one last show. I went todo it, and Nonna stayed home todo whatever lut_minute thingswi".... do at such a time. Finally Ireturned from the studio, we had asnack. and turned in at about teno'cloek.

I lumed over and kept tu........So dld Norma. Then a brief quietperiod. followed by rna'" ......tless­ness. Finally. at about e\even

1

o'clock I whispered, "Nonna. a....you asleep~"

"How eoukl. I boo as\eep with youacting Uke a whale, throwwg your­

--............ ..·...............1

self about' I'm wide awake!""So am L Let's stop kidding Our­

selves. We want to go tonight, SOlet's do it. What do you say?"

"All right with me, I was Sure itwould turn out like this, anyway."

"Say, hear those dogs at thedoor' They know we're ready togo."

"They always do. And you al­ways marvel at it."

Then a hurried breakfast. thetrip to the trailer parking lot near­by, a quick hitch_up, and away wewent, wide awake and happy askids when s<ohool lets out for thesummer vacation. The dogs gotthe fever, too. Herk is 00 excitedby tra.,,,1 that he n..arly has a hearta!tack. pallts like mad. licks hischops, and jumps from side to sidein the rear ooat, looking in all di_rections. This is the spalliel mem_ber, Henry the beagle, on the otherhand, quickly sized up the situa_tion: another of those long, tire_SOme rides, Well, better get somesleep. So there he was in themiddle of the seat with his hindquartcrs in the air, braced againstthe back of the seat and his headOn the seat, asleep! From time totime that odd dreamer would low_er, then raise himself in the rear,always keeping his chin on theseat, and remaining fast asleep

Mealltime, Herk ran back andforth excitedly, climbing on Hen­ry's whiskers. And the act wouldcontinue daily for 8,000 miles!

South on the Arroyo Seeo free_way we went. then east on US60_70.

All the usual wifely doubts abouttrailers were with Norma stillSoon she put one into words.

"I'm afraid to look hack," shesaid, "If I ignore IT. thenI'm not soscared."

"No need to worry about it,Norma, The hitch is secure. Therunning lights are on. Why, you'dhardly know we're pulling any_thing; the car handles it easily.You know, I'll bet that by tomor_row night you'll pay no attention toIT being back there at all,"

"I doubt it," said she. "I'll neverget used to it."

But of course she did. She finallypaid aboolutely no attention evenwhen we passed a truek on an oldiron bridge.

And SO on into the balmy Cali_fornia night, east through El Mon_te, past the intersection where 6()and 10 part company with 99, onpast the Palm Springs turn-off, pastIndio, and then we were out in thedesert. The hands of my watehwere reaching for three o'clock

(Contin'lJcd on next "(KJge)

Maiden Voyage(C01ltill"~ #Tom pAge 81)

when Desert Center ca~ into~ght.

"Wonder if we should drive allnight and get off to a real flyingstart. How do you feel about it,Norm.a~·'

"I don't miDd," she said. "Butyou're the One wOO does the driv­ing. Aren't)"OU awfully tired~ Andwon't we feel terrible tomorrow ifwe l!:O on all night?"

"Well, to be honest aoout it, I'vebeen feeling as if my eyes wouldfall out of my head. These guyswho ,.;on't dim their lighl$! Well.let's stop at that PI station."

I cheeked the mileage mentally-about IS miles on a gallon. Muchbetter than I'd e",peete<!. If I'd useda pencil it would have figuredaoout 12, but I was $0 s1eepy~

The station operator didn't seemto _ anything W'!"OI\i with it whenI asked him if we might take anap there. "Sure thU\g:' he SlLid."Pull OVer there. By that greaserack is okay:'

We pulled over, SlOPped, andgot out. We let the dOl(s out, gavethem fresh water, called them back,picked the burrs out of their foot_J)Olds. ga,"e them ,,·ater. j)<lt theminto the car, and went to the trail_

er. II looked like the WaldorfFortunately, the bed was madeup, and we fen in

As I recall, the Sun was gettingup rather late on December 22nd,Anyway, I didn't stir until thebright lil(ht streaked in past thecurtain, It was not a long sleep,but a good One, I lQssed the coversaside, got dressed. took the dogsoff into the desert, brought themback to the car, removed the burrsfrom their feet, and went for cof­fee water. Meanwhile, Norma hadgone into action. We had break­fast-grapefn>it, coffee, and rolls.We stacked the dishes, waved tothe station operator, and off wesailed, with the Ariaona line an ex_citing target

"Let's not make our usual mis_take," said Norma, "Let's eat lightfood-plenty of apples and otherfruit. We always feel better, youknow," We had an apple,

It was a lovely day, brisk at theearly hour, but gradually warmeras the sun rOSe higher, We reachedBlythe, crossed the Colorado, en­tered Arizona, and watched eager­ly for changes in the scenery, Itwas all new country coming up,all the way to Flagstaff, We intend­ed to leave 60 and 70 west of Phoe­nix and take 71, then 89. and finally89 alternate, So far the roads wereexcellent. I wondered if we'd chos­en well ahead, I knew that theminor roads are often better thanthe major highways, but I was con­cerned because of pulling the trail_e,

In mid-aftemoon a sign prom­ised that SOOn we'd be in Jerome,billed as the biggest ghost town inthe world, I pictured it in my mind~ little place like every otherabandoned western town, roughwooden buildings. leaning on thewind.

But here is a surprisingly largecity perched on the lop of themountains facing north and eastIf this is a ghost town it's certain_ly the world's biggest. It's quite amodern town, yet it is deserted.We drove on, and the place grewstranger by the block. There werea couple of big hotels. There wasa high school that had be<.n builtabout 20 years ago, a big oneYet it was apparent that for agood many years nOw the place had

(Continued On next page)

Maiden Voyage(Conl;,,,,d from JIlIge 83)~ desuted. Must be quite astory here, p~bly ~edwith a ."fin of met.al that broughlllre.al "'Nlth to a few, then peteredoul and broughl pie£ 10 many. We.slowly dropped dm"n the moun_taiJ\llide, away from Jerome. Some_day I'd like to go back there withtime to look around.

Soon we came to a streich ofcolorful red rock country. It wassomewhat like the Colorado Ga....den of the Gods. but more inler_estine ",ith lliant red boulde...e,~ry..'here, red cliffs in manyshapes and $hades of red. and muc:hgreen v~lalion. I found m)"Selfwantinlt to build a trailer pari<there. From~~ dropped dO"-'nfanher. then staned up again.

The day was almost llO"e. so wasthe las, whenwe came to a camp­sIte in Coconmo National Forest.I knew that it would be better toget stuck in the daytime so I pulledinto the camp$ite, thinking tluot ifI had to walk for ps. at least it"''Quid be by daylight. 11l.ere_tn«I to be about I""erlty milesof uHrade driving to F1agstaff"'hen I cl>ecl<ed the map. Well,"'e'd found a lovely spol.

We park" the trailer after a101 of backing and fill<ng. then gol

out of the car. and it was like step­ping into a deep freeu. There "'asice on the siream. frost in the air.I lei the dogs out. and without re­gard for anything they rushed tothe stream. walked in, and fnnli_cally tried to drink it dry. Th_ Irealized tluot I'd forgouen to refilltheir water dishes for hours.

We went into the trailer, and Istarted looking for matches atonce. Must have been below ~ro

in th..r .., too. None to be found. Nomatches meant cold food, no heatfrom the Panelr:ay heater, no hotcoftee in the morning. It would bemuch coldu before morning. Sowe looked around at this beautifulcampsite regretfully. thinking ,,-.nice it might have ~. and ...tout~upthed~~I~~

At Flaptaft. the station attend_ant suggested anlifn!'t!U: as a goodinvestmenl. I said that I'd drainthe radiator if it remained coldwhen we stopped for the night 1just didn't realize yet that Califor_nia _weather didn't extend beyondCalifornia. We'd be going down to"'armer country durinj: the night.So down we ..'enl. but not to any......rmth. About eleven we found abig gas station in a small 109.....filled up, and were given permis­sion 10 park there for lhe night. Itwas ""en coJder than in F1aptalf.

so I drained the radialor and thentended to the dogs. The beagleneeded his sweater that night

The next mQrning the radiatordrain pipe had a big icicle hangingfrom it, and there was Jots of ie..under the car, i was sure the blockhad cracked. Even if it hadn't. howcould r "ver get it slarted a1 five I0010"" zero? I tried, and it beganto hit. I.purnped the accelerator, Itbit agam. I pumped some more.Finally 11 took hold and th"" diedThen it started and ran all right.But suddenly much smoke camefc<>m the open hood. I shut it off.got oul. look..-d it Over. and foundthat the waler pump had frozenSO Ihat the ran belt was slippingon its pulley, just like a skiddingtire on the pavement. ! carefullyfreed the pump by rotating it, thenstarted the car again, let it run fora minute. then shut it off. WhenNorma came out I'd be able tostart it easily, fill the radiator, andwe'd be able to gG, Unless theblock had cracke<! we'd be allright, and about the block onlytime could tell.

,Norma was shll quaking under amountain of clothing and bedding"Wake up, dearie," I told her, "Thetrail..r is nke and warm now,"

"I don't believe it," said she,but she fought her- way up out ofIhe depths, We had breakfast, then Iwent to the car, It starte<! readily.While Norma kept il going with alight touch On the throttle, I fille<!the radiator. I che<:ke<! the oil. andthe dipstkk had no water on it'lPerhaps the block was unharme<!.Away we went, hopefully. heade<!for the warmer weather that was

(Confinued on next page)

Maiden Voyage(COMli....N from P"9" 85)

suJlPOlll"d to be waiting for us ;nthe 10", country to the east.

It wasn't long befon= Adwna laybehind us, and soon we reachedGallup, New Mexi"O. Into a gasstation we went, and this time ....eCOl antifr.eeze! The station anend_ant said /hal nonnal winter "'....th_er brings t",o feet of snow on thehi&hway. And this was the south­ern route? Well, now we knew, andOn the return trip we would plan itbetter.

Beyond that eastern horiwn wewould COme to Albuquerque. thenTueumc.ari. wbere we "'-ouJd want10 lurn off to !he nonh for the shortroute to Chicago, where my sisterlives. We had never ....alIy believedIhat we "Ould make that part of thetrip. but had hoped to do it. Webegan to listen to the weather fore­casts. A cold front was pushing outof the Arctic icebox, headed forChiea~. CI.......bnd, and pointseast. We shuddered and <:ontinuedeast on 66. figuring that OklahomaCity was the last chance for atum off 10 the north. If we pusedthat. headed straight east to Mem_phis. then the....·d be no Chicagovisit.

All the fo...eeast5 pointed to badf"OllIb and a ""mle Christmas forChicagoans. BUI when Memphiswu far behind and we we.... ap­proaching ChattanOOKa. we got thefinal word on what Christmas dayin Chicago was really like: sunny.no snow, no cold! The oldsterswere saying. ~Jusl doesn't seoemlike Christmas. Why bad: in 1910the snow Was ...~

Christmg dinner found WI in aTennessee roadside park. I fortifiedthe dog dinners with some ha"Onfat. and they had a fine holiday.After a good dinner. they had awild romp on the grass in the sun­bath ~. indeed. for the lasl2.000 miles. Our Christmas fan'may seem cnm to you. but at thetime it hil the spot---<hili withmelted ch_, salad, peaches. and"Oflee.

We felt much beUer, quile new.in fact. We had been on the roadsi~ the preceding Tuesday night,and bad con'ere<! two-thirds of OUrjourney east. A complete change

[ of clothes. and the prospect of --:

inti: old friends made things lookvery good.

1be friends didn't know we ..........on the road. They hadn't seen U5

for live years. ,-'nd they didn'tknow that we had a trailer, nordid they know anything abouttrailers. It baflled them. They neverfigure<! out how to behave towardlUes" who didn't need bed orboard. It Wall wonderful. Theirteen-,age son. heretofnre disp1ace:l.by Our "isits, kepi his bed, and itwas nice for everybody, We stayedthat night. most of the nvrt day,and then prepared to leave. Atthat lime we intftlded to come backon the trip~ and s~ a littlemore time.

We headed north on n, Connect,i<:ut.bound with only 800 miles or.., left to go. The w.... ther turnedfoul, it started to rain, and grewcolder. We dedded to drive han!and 6nisb the trip to Hartford as..."... as """""ble, because from bereon DOrth anything cou1d happen inthe _ther department. 11>&t nightwe eouldn'l find a tniler park, butwe did find • nice. quiet little Vir_ginia town with very wide streets.We pulled off onto a grassy shoul_der near a street light, and we wereborne.

At sunrise next mo~ the dogs(COOltinlO~ 001 lIuf page)

Maiden Voyage(Continued from page 87)

began to jump madly, the trailerbobbed in sympathy with the car,and I thought it was an earthquakeI looked out. and as usual the alarmdock tume<! out to be a passingcanine. Harry and Herk didn'twaken the neighborhood. but theymade up for subdued barking byleaping up and down. Togetherthey weigh no more than 45pounds. yet it's amazing how theycan rock the boat. I was glad toget an early start. however. It wasnoticeably oolder.

After the usual chores we set outto the north On Highway II. passedthe Winchester turnoff to the Sky­line Drive. and made a note Wtake it instead of the highway whenwe headed back to CaliforniaToward the end of the day wereached Gettysburg. That eveningwe left II in Harrisburg. turne<!east On 22. and drove from Eastonnorth to 6. which crosses the Hud·SOn at Bear Mountain.

Although it was oold in Pennsyl­vania. it seemed (rom the weatherreports that we had nothing toworry about if we just kept mOv­ing. A oold feont was moving east,but it appeared to be about 24hours away. Allowing for error. itappeared that we'd be in Hartforobefore it got there. But as we ap­proached The Bear Mountain areait started 10 rain. After battling thenarrow blacktop road with itsabrupt curves for an hour or more,we came to a busy intersectionwith an exceptionally big gas sta­tion. We fIlled up, and I asked ifwe might stay over night.

We turned in about two in themorning with the wonderful feelingthat we had it practically made­just a hundred miles or 50 to jour­ney's end. Why, we could makethat in a day, even On ice! Andright then it began to look asthough we might have a chance toprove that we could; (oe rain beganfalling On the roof. and it was get­ting colder.

Next morning it was colder still.but the rain had slOpped. Wecrossed the Bear Mountain bridge,headed up the mountain. and stop­ped at the summit, where there'sa large parking space overlooking

the Hudson. It was a grey day. ofcourse. but that wasn't the onlyreason for the sorry landscapeSuch a colledion of litter-paper.cans. bottles, old pieces of sand­wiches-everything imaginable,from One side to the other. Notrash cans in sight.

That reminds me_we've foundthat on a trip of any length a wastebasket in the Car Can be as useful,or e.·en mON! SO, than the One athome. It keeps the litter in the caruntil it can be burned

The weather continued cold andthreatening. and there was quitea lot of ice and some SnOw at theroadside in the gullies. When wedescended to the lowlands therewas no more snow, however.

A winter vacationer from Cali­fornia is struck by the grim, leaf­less trees in the eastern pari ofthe country. We're a<Xustomed tovariations. of course, but even indeserl country there are SOmegreen things. Or al least SOmeleaves. It seemed 10 me that OldMan East was naked. He neededa white blanket.

The outlook improved quite a bitas we approached Hartford-somewooded country, a lake or two.good_looking, old, white houses andfences. It's a rolling country. withblack_top roads of the lxlck-coun­try SOrl. They wind and meanderup hill, down dale, curving toomuch for fast driving, but mightypleasant if you're not hurrying.With less than 50 mil.... to go wedidn't have to hurry any mOre

We arri.·ed at the folks" about2,00 p.m. Wednesday, after juslone week on the road.

The old homestead was bulgingwith out-of-town relat;" .... who hadbeen there since Christmas. andhad stayed on to see uS

How useful the Irailer could bewas SOOn demonstrated for, as Isaid, the house was filled, so thebeds were, too. But that was noproblem; we had brought ours withus!

We had made harbor safely. andthe good ship lay at anchor in theback yard, orphan by day, homeby night, until the crowd thinnedout a bit

Now that we were at resl forten days, there was time to do

(Continued On next page)

Maiden Voyage(CORlnlllcod from P"9" 89)

~ work on the lratlU. Most im­poMant ilem was the hNwr. wbkhhad pieked a finO!. friKid tim<! to getfouled up. The pilot flame ""ou!dn't~1.cay on. The only way )'OU couldg..t th.. hig bun,..r to work w.to hold your finger On the pilot­primer hulton, and that m..ant.tanding on your head. Th.. mo­ment you took your fing..r 011 theprimer button. the flame went out.It was apparent that by kcepll1& thepriIMr button depreue<l 1 couldha,'" a hNter that ",ould. heat. but",'OUld ......ui""' malehes 10 get itlighted. I took off the fitting ....hic:bC-'O\'"rs the prim"r bulton assembly,put a tum of w;"'" around the shaft,put the plaw hack On SO that itwould press against the tum ofwiNl and hold th.. button in, andscrew~'<i it light. Then. although thepilot lighl was d..ad, lhe heater wasvery much alive wb..n you put amaleh 10 it. So we had h..at, whichwas lucky, for without it "'.., couldnot have ~lept in the trailu. LawrI diacm'ered that there had beennothing ""rang with the b..awr. '!'bebutane had frozen, that "'.;os all

Wh..... in Hartford I ""anted toget our table problem solved. With• bed in the hack and a large couchin the front our 16-foot trailer hadno table. We had tried to use ODeof those f>reside tables, but it washeavy, unstabl... too high for com­fort wh...n you sat on the couch,and very much in the ",·ay. Abo,the ~box door could not be

r~y"'~~~=~C-'O\'er ovu the S!O'o'" ""'" jw;t theriaht size for a table for two. 1unhin~ it from the galley top,put approprUlw hardware on oneend. put matching hardware jU$labove the i.......box. screwe<! an alu­minum doset pole fitting to thebottom of th.. table. and then set

it up. A rubber lip such as youmight use on a crutch fitted overthe leg, and that was all there wasto it. It was perfect. Just the rightheight for the <:ouch. There wasonly one leg, and it was out of theway. The stainless steel edge andthe matching linoleum top made itlook like a custom job. 11 couldtravel up Or down, and took onlya minute to handle

Our eastward journey demon_strated the need for prompt dishwashing, too. It may be all right tocarry over the breakfast dishes tilllunch_time washing, but that's thelimit. Letting dishes go for the sake()f getting under way again quicklyis a great temptation. SO beware!Your trailer and your attitude arereally fouled up by a lot of dirtydishes

Water is always a problem. Ithink that One of the smarlest waysto spend a little money is on agood pump and tank Fer a traveltrailer, a new GI gas can makesan ideal tank With One of theseyou only have to attach the pumpto the sink top and connect a ntb­her hose of the right length to it.I like the GI can because ifs easyto keep it sanitary, easy to fill.

You'll want a large spigot jugor a large ,.,-,frigerator water bottle,too. You can't always conned tocity water, and won't want to drinkwater from any tank Take somechlorine tablets along, too. Youmay never use them, but chancesare you will.

Another thing that makes all thedifference is a butane light. Theydon't cost much, and they makeyou independent. If you don't wantto install a butane light, get a Cole­man lantern. It gives a good light,Ind can be taken outside, too.

Finally, a good two-burner gaso­line camp stove will add a lot toyour pleasure. You might like tocook outside. And then too, youmight be out of bulane at dinner­time! Another thing: the gallon of!Ugh-<juality, white, stove gasolineis as good as any other for an emer_gency supply for the car.