Touring with Raymond Spears 
Good Camps Each Night Add Immeasurably to the Comfort of a Tour 
HERE are 
Afi countless 
things that 
bother the auto- 
mobile tourist, 
especially in the 
hours between 
rolling. Camp is 
always made when 
the party is tired 
after a long and 
glorious day run- 
mone et hr ou 2b 
novel and _ beauti- 
ful scenes. But 
toward night, the 
wind may turn 
chill, clouds may 
threaten storm, 
the road may go on and on with deep 
ditches on either side, inhospitable 
fences barbed against intrusion, yap- 
ping curs at all the house lanes— 
the aloneness, the far-from-homeness 
of strangers in a far land will affect 
the travelers’ spirits. 
There are people, of course, to 
whom these things, even weari- 
ness, are an inspiration. The 
coming of a stormy night in fre- 
quent manufacturing communi- 
ties, or crowded = suburban 
cities, even, does not trouble 
the joyous wanderer. But to 
my mind, the great trial of all 
traveling is towards the day’s 
end, when there is no hole in 
sight to hide in for the night. 
Then the spirits droop, and 
doubts arise whether, after all, 
the bother and discomfort are 
worth the time and travel? 
Over-doing, sometimes _ in- 
evitable, is of course the main 
difficulty. Tired people find camp- 
making a hard and burdensome task. 
If the outfit is complicated, ill-packed, 
and ill-assorted, one may be tempted 
to neglect making camp at all, but 
pull out beside the highway, pull down 
the curtains and cramped in the seats, 
go to sleep with the rain pouring 
down, and the future mighty doubtful. 
JUVLUNIUIVRLLUOUUYOLUYOUUUOUVIDLYVDUYVOUSUUUVTUAYUUUUOGQYUPLEVDLHSOUUOOUSTPDIUDULEUUUSUUUUUAGYVLYVULUOUGGUOUIVLEUOUTUOUEEOUUUUUU LCG 
Bet old woodsmen, old travelers, 
old timers know that the best way 
to do is stop early, and make as good 
a night of it as possible. And in 
making camp, one should remember a 
good many things that may happen 
to strangers in new country—different 
country from what one knows. 
I learned to look out for wind, down 
the Mississippi river in a shanty-boat, 
when in a bend above Vicksburg the 
Page 79 
it right. 
storm. 


southwest wind—“cyclone”—took half 
the roof off our boat, because we mis- 
took a bank’s angle. It didn’t pro- 
tect us from a little hurricane that 
came from the West. Out in the 
western states, where the twisters are 
a factor in weather, it is worth while 
to have one’s camp in a valley lee. 
IALUTEOUUOTOEVOTTHPUVSPOTVUOETUTE ETTORE 
Making a snug, comfortable camp is a com- 
paratively easy task ... provided you do 
Given the proper outfit, if a party 
uses a reasonable amount of judgment in as- 
sembling it, there is no reason why water 
should run in, or the tent blow down, in a 
This article contains valuable ad- 
vice to tourists who camp by the roadside. 
It should always be, however, well 
above the river bed. The lee is, gen- 
erally speaking, anything from west 
to south—from which direction come 
the dangerous gales. Doubtless, one 
may travel in that land many miles, 
and not be caught in a_ storm— 
but again, one may not escape. 
There are possibilities of “cloud 
bursts,” rainfalls of several inches in 
a few hours. These start waves down 
bayous, draws, valleys, arroyas, and 
where there was dust at sunset, a 
flood fifteen or twenty feet deep may 
flow in the morning. Streams in 
Pennsylvania, the Blue Ridge, and all 
the Appalachian region from southern 
New York to Alabama are subject to 
these floods and freshets, and a camp 
on a brook bottom, close to the stream, 
may be dangerously flooded by a 
,) your 
V 
raging torrent be- 
fore morning. I 
have seen moun- 
tain streams in 
long narrow val- 
leys rise, on a 
starlight night, 
more than ten feet 
—a storm a hun- 
dred miles away 
doing: it. 
The disasters at 
Erie, Pa., at Pueb- 
lo, Colo., at Johns- 
town, Pa., down 
Black river valley, 
and down the Mis- 
souri river valley, 
were all conditions 
due to storms, breaking dams, and nar- 
row valleys. It is much safer in mak- 
ing camp, even on municipal grounds, 
to find shelter from wind, and a site 
high above the possibility of overflow. 
A camp pitched on a nice level place 
may be flooded only six inches deep—it 
may do no real damage to be flooded, 
but it adds a lot to the dis- 
comfort. I remember one night 
when I rolled up on a side hill, 
in blanket and waterproof, only 
to be routed out by rain at 2 
A. M., because I had not put 
up my canvas in _ ship-shape. 
It looked so nice, I thought it 
wasn’t worth while! 
The automobile should be 
rested on hardpan. I stood my 
motor-cycle on a sandbar, one 
time, and when I returned a 
few hours later the wind had 
drifted the sand away, upset 
the machine, all my gasolene 
had leaked out, except about a 
ecupful, which left me with a two-mile 
walk ahead. 
Zan 
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Make 
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IND will scoop sand from under 
automobile tires, and water will 
convert dry sand into quicksand. Clay 
will dissolve into muck in a few min- 
utes. Any kind of camp ground should 
be carefully tested, if it isn’t obviously 
hard-bottom and safe, rather than 
make a camp there at all. And a side 
hill, or a slight slope, at least, is often 
far and away better than the dead 
level that saturates and covers with 
water. 
Cots and running-board beds can be 
leveled up with blocks or chunks or 
stones. It is often advisable to put a 
piece of board under the legs of cots, 
or camp beds, so they will not sink into 
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