114 
Forest and Stream 
AUTO-TOURING WAYS AND MEANS 
THE FIRST OF A SERIES OF PAPERS DEPICTING THE PRACTICAL 
EVERY-DAY ROUTINE OF THIS POPULAR OUTDOOR RECREATION 
By RAYMOND S. SPEARS 
T HE first step toward auto-touring 
is to procure a map showing 
the automobile highways of the 
United States. An excuse for 
going will not be lacking—that feeling 
of weariness against the humdrum daily 
life is enough. A relative in some dis¬ 
tant region, the desire to educate one's 
children, or business, poverty, poor 
health, outdoor longings, sadness of 
heart, a honeymoon, the Call of the Wild, 
Lure of the Golden West—all these are 
the excuses offered when one listens 
to the fellow tourists who camp by the 
wayside or in municipal camps. 
The astonishing discovery which the 
tourist makes when he begins to roll is 
the miscalculation as to what he can 
or may do. One meets the speed fiends; 
they figure on two to three hundred miles 
a day. In fourteen days—two weeks— 
they plan from 2,800 to 4,200 miles. 
They do not count on detours, differing 
highway conditions, and the inevitable 
depreciation of the automobile, which 
demands at least one day a week for 
repairs, oiling, greasing, tightening up 
and cleaning. 
We met tourists who had started for 
a week’s trip, and who had been on the 
go for months, and even for years. In 
our own experience, we started for the 
Mississippi River, expecting to be on the 
way a month or six weeks, and at Den¬ 
ver we decided the Pacific Coast was 
nearer than home, hack in the Mohawk 
Valley, anyhow. We were gone a year 
to the week. 
Accordingly, when the question of 
where to go arises in the would-be 
tourists’ minds, it is necessary to count 
on the unexpected development, the 
change of view - point, the incredible 
reckonings that stir unsuspected inde¬ 
pendence, adventuresomeness and re¬ 
sourcefulness which grow and expand 
as the hearts of the party feel the strange 
exhilaration that comes of crossing- 
states and regions into the far-dream- 
land and now only a few days’ drive 
from the most sedate and conventional 
home in New England—or the ranch 
that lies at the end of a desert pair of 
ruts, called a road. 
M ORE than twenty years of intermit¬ 
tent wandering, woods camping, 
train, shanty-boat, skiff, motorcycle, 
bicycle, pedestrian travel and tripping 
found me staring helplessly at my seven- 
passenger, six-cylinder 1916 automobile 
when it came to putting on and leaving 
off outfit. I didn’t even know where to 
go, nor how far I could go. I couldn’t 
figure what the cost would be. I was 
at a loss in anticipation and in realiza¬ 
tion. The thousands of miles in a score 
of states gave me but inklings of what an 
automobile trip would hold forth—or 
refrain from handing out. 
Answering the lure of the road 
I suppose the tourists who start away 
with no definite destination nor route 
feel that in this way they escape many of 
the problems of roads. They just stick 
to the “most traveled route,” and in 
doing this, starting from New England, 
they arrive at the Mississippi River, or 
Washington, D. C., or circle from the 
Atlantic to Lake Champlain, or Buffalo, 
N. Y., without encountering anything 
that calls even for second gear, save 
perhaps Jacob’s Ladder in the Berk- 
shires, or sundry pitches and climbs in 
the White Mountains — up Crawford 
Notch, or down some long grade through 
pleasant farmlands, with the idea that 
second gear saves brakes (a first-class 
idea to have firmly in the mind, by the 
way). 
There is no highway of touring length 
which does not at one time or an¬ 
other present impassahility. The winter 
months close the northern highways defi¬ 
nitely. They fill the mountain passes of 
the Rockies and Sierras with snow. The 
spring months, as well as the winter ones, 
have their rains which turn Kansas, Mis¬ 
souri, southern state and northern state 
highways into mud daubs. The desert 
highways of Utah, Nevada, Arizona and 
New Mexico may in the summer months 
be full of such peril that road authorities 
close certain sections to travelers, and in 
the arid regions one sees warnings: 
“Do Not Undertake This Trail Without 
Ample Supplies of Gas, Oil and 
WATER.” 
Even autumn, the glory months of the 
touring year, may find one running into 
the chill storms which turn the dusty 
highways into muck that stops a car 
where it bogs down. 
I am in Texas while writing this ar¬ 
ticle. When I asked the Weather Bureau 
for information about Texas, they sent 
me five weather zones, each one larger 
than New York State—and I “took a 
chance,” and won against the late autumn 
and winter rains in crossing the pine 
region of Eastern Texas, where normal¬ 
ly I should have been mired by storms. 
When to go is determined by seasons. 
Where to go by one’s fancy. From the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, across the Upper 
Mississippi, one must know that May, 
June, July, August and September are 
the available months. Last May, in 
Wyoming, a blizzard swept the plateaus 
and mountains, and men, horses and cat¬ 
tle were frozen to death. The thaw-out 
left the highways in some parts deep 
with alkali muck. A little later, the Lin¬ 
coln Highway presented to the transcon¬ 
tinental travelers a wonderland of joy— 
and experience. Some time since, a man 
crossing Raton Pass, south of Trinidad, 
Colorado, near the New Mexico line, was 
caught in a blizzard as he crossed in a 
fliver. He lost his way and froze to 
death. 
No one can pick a route without 
jeopardies; at any city corner, in any 
straightaway, at any bend, on any high¬ 
way one may smash into a dangerous ac¬ 
cident. That is normal automobile driv¬ 
ing, whether touring or just running 
down town. But thousands of western 
and southern cars come to New York 
and New England, seeking the vast 
milage of fine roads. These eastern 
states are beginning to establish munici¬ 
pal and public camp grounds where tour¬ 
ists can stop and feel welcome. In 1919 
a car drove 75 miles up the Mohawk val¬ 
ley, on one of the two main thorough¬ 
fares to the west, and found not one 
camp ground till he struck a four rod 
square patch east of Herkimer. There 
are a dozen camp grounds between 
Schenectady and Lffica now. 
Hundreds of camp grounds are being 
established, some free, some with 
charges, some with conveniences, some 
without; generally speaking, one can go 
anywhere in the country now and find 
camp grounds, at reasonable intervals. 
But also, one finds increasing restric¬ 
tions. A few tourists have made inex¬ 
cusable nuisances of themselves, vandals 
at school and church yards, sneaks in 
rural surroundings and trespassers every¬ 
where. These have led some states, 
cities and regions to become more or less 
hostile or contemptuous toward the 
camping tourists. Nowhere on the main 
routes is to be expected—or desired—the 
lavish old-time hospitality toward the 
utter stranger. People who seek some¬ 
thing for nothing, whether hunting, fish¬ 
ing, service, board and lodging, or the 
other things one must pay for at home 
are sure to be disappointed. 
But one does find, on the average, fair 
treatment and usually fair prices. A few 
years ago garages often assumed the 
tourist would never be seen again. Such 
places may still be found along the high¬ 
ways and byways. But when one meets 
