Touring With Raymond Spears 
The Importance of Taking Good Books with You on Tour Cannot Be Overemphasized 
T is a great impertinence to tell 
] anyone what they should read, yet 
I should be derelict if the subject 
were not discussed with regard to a 
tourist’s library. My own experience 
has been exasperating and humiliating 
in this matter. No matter what the 
journey, the reading fell into three 
periods. 
In the first place, a region to be vis- 
ited strikes my fancy. Perhaps in my 
boyhood or youth some urge developed 
because of a hint, a book, or an article. 
Thus FOREST AND STREAM inevitably 
looms large in my memories regarding 
the things that led me to periodical 
sprees out in the landscape, “travel- 
ing.” There were “Yo,” and Emerson 
Hough, and “Kingfisher,” and T. S. 
Van Dyke’s series of articles which 
developed into the wonderful “Still- 
hunter’—the best book ever written 
telling how to hunt. I recall para- 
graphs from letters whose writers I do 
not name. 
Thus the Mississippi River, the 
Rocky Mountains, the Deserts, the Ca- 
nadian Wilderness, the Great Lakes, 
Maine, and the Gulf of Mexico, and 
Texas all were destinations, long be- 
fore I more than half-believed I should 
ever see them. With a travelers’ work- 
ing library always stacked up around 
me—my father collected thousands of 
volumes—I ranged far and wide in 
reading, and if 
there is one fact 
plainer than all 
others, it is that 
the tourist will 
add immeasura- 
bly to his or her 
pleasure if, long 
before going, a 
a small collection 
of books is ac- 
cumulated, cover- 
ing,in the matter 
of auto touring, 
the methods of 
traveling in the 
chosen way. 
I have many 
inquiries regard- 
ing “What to see” on a trip, and which 
trail to follow, and even where to go. 
Just to wander off somewhere, nowhere 
in particular, but everywhere some- 
time, is vagabonding. This can be 
very delightful, as those who read 
Stevenson’s donkey-tours, and Henry 
Francks’ wanderings afoot in the 
Andes, or Dickens’ trip down the Mis- 
sissippi know. But even the most way- 
Page 17 
tain roads, 
of relaxation. 
DIU 
After a hard drive through hot 
desert country, or a nerve-rack- 
ing run over dangerous moun- 
nothing takes 
place of a good book as a means 
Every one has 
his favorites, but the list Mr. 
Spears gives is particularly ap- 
propriate to the auto camper. 
TTL TUT 
ward and unplanned wanderings do 
concentrate upon some certain region, 
or comprehend some certain phases of 
observations. 
A notebook, I should say, is the most 
important of all working libraries, 
especially for a tourist. A journal- 
ruled, blue-lined, ink-papered well- 

bound book of 200 to 400 pages is best. 
I find a loose-leaf notebook with my 
portable typewriter excellent. The 
pages should be somewhere from six 
by eight by ten inches. There is a 
psychological reason—I don’t know the 
science of it—why the larger page in- 
vites more notes and a copious descrip- 
tion of any or all scenes. This is my 
experience. I 
have, in fact, a 
notebook in my 
pocket for jot- 
tings (from which 
I rewrite at 
length some- 
times), the things 
that I desire to 
recall. 
There are a 
number of auto- 
mobile camping 
books on the 
market. Captain 
Fordyce’s “Trail- 
craft” is espe- 
cially interesting, 
since it relates to 
Rocky Mountain and Desert wander- 
ings. Jessup has written two auto 
touring books which go into multifer- 
ous detail. Steward Edward White’s 
books on outdoor travels with pack- 
horses are useful. I should say that 
the would-be tourist ought to obtain at 
least a dozen or fifteen books on camp- 
ing out, including the Kephart, Hard- 
ing, canoeing, motorboat and other 
the 
types and kinds of “tell-how” and de- 
scriptive materials. 
The reason is, one_ instinctively 
grasps and remembers the things 
which appeal as “good ideas,” and the 
accumulation of these good ideas means 
that the tourist will be prepared for 
the things for which a particular hank- 
Books are 
friends 
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dle 
ering is felt. These “know-how” books 
are preliminary reading. I have some 
few of this type of books. I have 
clipped hundreds of items from news- 
papers and magazines, because they 
seemed “reasonable.” I suppose that in 
these days, probably ninety per cent. 
of what one knows and practices in 
outdoor life comes directly or indirectly 
from reading. Certain it is, that prac- 
tically every automobile tourist went 
forth ignorant, except for reading, and 
by perseverance and experiment, based 
on more or less reading, learned more 
or less “how.” And thus if one will 
simply make a practice of considering 
the personal utility of each suggestion 
of camping, touring, cooking and other 
practice, practically all the difficulties 
of touring can be met with equanimity. 
“What is the best road from the At- 
lantic Ocean to the Pacific? Also, 
please name the interesting places to 
visit on the way.” 
My own memory of the trip from 
Central New York to the Pacific con- 
tains material for not less than 50,000 
words of mere description. The one 
stretch of highway from Johnson’s 
pass, by Orr’s ranch, across Skull Val- 
ley, along Granite Mountain, around 
the Tulle Marsh, by Fish Springs 
Ranch, through Kerney, and on to Iba- 
pah, in the Great Salt Lake Desert 
contains “interesting objects” that 
could not be catalogued as in an en- 
cyclopzdia in less than a hundred thou- 
(Continued on page 42) 
