8 
The Perennial Adventure 
night stops. But in time she pioneered among women by design¬ 
ing and making a more sensible denim costume—and riding 
astride when she attacked such a mountain as Grays Peak in the 
great Continental Divide. This she did several times, and her 
summer adventures should inspire an epic saga. Once when her 
horse became terrified during an electric storm, most of her 
money was scattered and lost. Telling about it afterwards she 
confessed, “As a matter of fact, I always had more concern for 
my plants than my money! ” 
These precious plants became the nucleus of the State Univer¬ 
sity’s Herbarium at Boulder. Alice Eastwood’s own work on the 
flora of Colorado was begun when she made her first real botani¬ 
cal discoveries in almost unknown territory. She preferred to 
travel alone, but others often wanted to go along, to be guided 
by such an erudite and entertaining person. She became increas¬ 
ingly independent in spirit and unconventional in action, scarcely 
realizing it until disturbed by an episode unexpectedly tinged 
with sadness. 
In 18 81 she took advantage of low train fares, caused by a rail¬ 
road rate war, to travel east and visit her Uncle William and his 
family at Highland Creek. The old man she found congenial as 
ever, but the girl cousins with whom she once had played so hap¬ 
pily and freely—these childhood companions had turned into 
“high-toned” young ladies who gazed askance at her queer clothes 
and shuddered at her strange adventures. Alice Eastwood, east¬ 
ern Canadian in origin, now longed for her home in western 
America. 
But first, before returning to the now, she traveled farther 
