Touring With Raymond Spears 
From Coast to Coast with the Most Experienced Auto-Camper of the Day 
A FEW years ago auto tourists 
felt themselves to be unusual 
and in a class by themselves. 
The feeling doubtless survives among 
newcomers. The old comraderie was 
so pleasant and profitable a 
thing that its passing cannot 
fail to bring expressions of re¬ 
gret to the lips of those who 
enjoyed it. In the eastern 
states, the automobile tourists 
never did thaw out. In the 
West, I hope they never will 
freeze up. With millions of 
people annually rolling out into 
the places that are distant, the 
cheering wave of the hand, the 
shout of one’s state’s name, the 
stopping to pass the time of 
day on meeting another camp- 
outfitted car grow less and less 
feasible. 
But the tourist, however dis¬ 
tant or uppish or offish he may at first 
feel, will find himself after a time—the 
sooner the better—constrained to ex¬ 
change his own experiences for that of 
others. That is, when one is going far 
away, along one of the Trails of the 
Painted Blaze, it is always worth while 
to hail another car for specific and gen¬ 
eral information. 
The municipal camp grounds are al- 
barrier at the culverts he was building, 
and I do not know how many cars ran 
into concrete frames over washways. 
Anywhere west of the Missouri, es¬ 
pecially off the main highways, the 
min 
This month Raymond Spears talks about 
fellow wanderers. He emphasizes the im¬ 
portance of co-operation on the road as well 
as at home. . . . On the long desert trail, the 
sti ip of mountain road, or any place where a 
car on tour develops trouble, there the 
spirit of good fellowship should be upper¬ 
most in the minds of those who overtake 
their less fortunate brothers of the turnpike. 
tourist who is at all timid may well 
make inquiry. The garages in Omaha 
are apt—or were apt—to throw the 
traveler off the Lincoln Highway to¬ 
ward Denver, over the Omaha-Lincoln- 
Denver route. Perhaps this was the 
better way to go at certain seasons. 
On the other hand, perhaps there are 
gentlemen’s agreements between com¬ 
mercial organizations, groups of 
less of circumstances in order to bring 
a. casual dollar to town. Tourists can¬ 
not escape this imposition without re¬ 
lying on one another. And tourists 
unquestionably, are cutting the in¬ 
comes of the conscienceless out¬ 
fits. Old timers in every muni¬ 
cipal camp ground are advertis¬ 
ing not only the good regions to 
visit, but the countries where it 
isn t worth while to g'o—because 
of the attitude of local people 
who are wholly on the grab. 
Take, for example, the 
garages along a southern route 
to California. Many of them 
are wholly responsible and care¬ 
ful. Others have been known to 
take advantage of a tourists’ 
party in a predicament. One of 
these, for example, was re¬ 
ported in the camp at Redondo 
Beach, on the Pacific Coast to 
have charged $45 for towing a Pierce- 
Arrow car out of an Arizona washout 
and back to town, at the rate of $5 a 
mile. A dollar a mile is a fair towing 
rate. When a garage imposes on ten 
or fifteen tourists, those tourists want 
to tell about it and some do tell about 
it in local camp grounds. 
If tourists keep to themselves, re¬ 
fusing to have anything - to do with 
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ways good places for the exchange of 
road information. In some states, es¬ 
pecially in the South, contractors have 
a way of tearing down bridges, throw¬ 
ing up loose earth barriers and failing 
to put up either warning or detour 
signal. Where a bridge is torn out, the 
consequences of night driving may be 
serious. On one Arkansas highway, 
the contractor did not even put up a 
Page 625 
garages, and other local interests to 
send a tourist where it will be to the 
mutual advantage of the local interests 
—regardless of the tourist’s natural 
desire. 
The fact of the matter is, there are 
communities so unscrupulous and hun¬ 
gry for trade that they go almost to 
any length to mislead the tourist out of 
his way, off his right road, and regard- 
others, they miss all this important in¬ 
formation. They are apt to go to towns 
where two prices are maintained, one 
for tourists, one for local people. They 
fall into the hands of thieves running 
garages. They do not learn in time 
that a cloudburst has closed one route 
for four or five hundred miles, or made 
it slow and difficult. They fail to learn 
(Continued on page 651) 
