Individuality in Touring . 
What One Gets Out of a Cross Country 
Trip Depends Largely on His View-point 
OO little stress is laid on indi- 
T viduality in touring, auto outfits, 
regional conditions and seasonal, 
temperamental, local variations. I am 
trying to escape the formula type of 
suggestion, the perfect outfit notion, 
the trail-log accuracy of schedule. No 
two travelers ever had exactly the same 
experience on a tour or a trip. And 
what is the great delight of one party 
becomes a bore and a retardent for an- 
other. Some camp out, and some pre- 
fer hotel and restaurant accommoda- 
tions. 
Your true outdoor wanderer is a 
genius, alone in his ideals. If one sal- 
lies forth to see he certainly -is not . 
greatly concerned in whether fishing is 
good in Muddy creek, or shooting good 
on Wild Rush marsh. My own feeling 
is that a plain statement in so many 
words on paper will help every would- 
be traveler, whether on foot or by train 
or in an automobile or on a bicycle, to 
arrive at a positive knowledge of per- 
sonal desires. 
The fact literally is that thousands 
haven’t much of an idea of why they 
want to go to this or that place, and 
cannot give an exact answer to an in- 
quiry demanding a clear statement of 
the desire in their hearts. Instinct 
plays a large part in the longings to 
go. These longings appear in the 
spring and autumn months — clearly 
migrational impulses out of those bleak, 
bare experiences of humanity when the 
race followed the cloven-hoof herds and 
winged flocks on whose meat they fed. 
A bright moonlight night will start 
one’s feet to tramping, and this harks 
back to the old days when our ancestry 
traversed arid lands at night, by moon- 
light, or went on the war path. 
I have felt the well-nigh irresis- 
tible longing to go afloat on a stream, 
and I know that it was but the echo in 
my heart of faraway humans who 
fished down rivers of many bends. 
ND I confess—or boast—the lure 
that a trail has, when I can look 
along the way for a score or fifty miles 
where the rutted path leads the gaze 
across a low basin and up into a moun- 
tain gap or past pilot buttes—as in 
many western states. 
All of us are subject to these moods 
that grew down out of the necessities 
of the past. Nothing pays us better 
than to analyze those ancient longings 

By RAYMOND S. SPEARS 
of our family strain. We go through 
successive stages of development, 
through childhood’s inquiries, through 
youthful longing to catch and slay, 
through the vital years of love, through 
the intensely toiling years, when we ac- 
cumulate against the dread of age and 
failing powers, and finally through the 
Ped 
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Sry peo 
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ead 

Photo Courtesy U. S. Forest Service 
Kootenay National Forest. 
Along the Roosevelt Highway between 
Kalispell and Libby in the most extensive 
larch forest in the United States. 
patience and appreciation of age, after 
experience has rendered us fit for the 
grandeur and the magnificence of 
earth’s vast beauty and significance. 
If we would only give the attention 
to looking ahead to see whither we are 
going, why we are going, making our- 
selves ready for whatever the emergen- 
cy, from our own view-point, most of 
the errors of travel and most of the 
disappointments of out yonder would be 
evaded, or the mistakes proved happy 
and the surprise priceless. 
Referring to the other fellow’s 
opinion, to my own, or to some one who 
has been on the road, or to the learned 
compiler of equipments and outfits, 
grub-supplies to the exact ounce will 
not help the individual, except he 
weighs all suggestions according to the 
personal, party or family inclinations. 
Nothing is necessary because we have 
so many luxuries nowadays. 
Personally, I have violated all the 
rules of the outdoor game, so far as the 
how-to-do practices are concerned, and 
had fun doing it. I have neglected the 
opportunity to catch big fish, shoot big 
game, see famous spectacles, stand 
solemnly impressed at the greatest oc- 
casions. I have gone forth with no 
outfit at all, and with outfits far and 
away too elaborate, too heavy. 
ACTUALLY carried a trunk in a 
sixteen-foot skiff down the Missis- 
sippi, when I knew waterproof yacht- 
ing bags would have been far better— 
but I didn’t have the bags, and I had 
the trunk. There you are! 
Money—money—money! How much 
money do we need to travel? I don’t 
know. I’ve traveled for weeks at a 
time, with only a dollar or two in my 
pocket—working my way along. I do 
not recall that I ever did luxuriate, 
with a feeling of wealth on account of 
much money. I do know that some can 
taste no savor of life in travel, unless 
they have “lots of money,” so that they 
need not worry about the last lap of 
their trips. I have started off on many 
a long journey, knowing that I had less 
than half enough to “do it right” in 
cash. But experience has told me that 
when I wait for ample funds, the day 
of the start is indefinitely postponed. 
And I know, also, that when the human 
machine is put to it, even facing the 
problem of obtaining sustenance in a 
strange land, among indifferent people, 
a man will find his way through— 
somehow. 
Every traveler, every seeker of ex- 
perience, information, opportunity and 
adventure has a different rope or end 
in view. I can truthfully say that on 
many a trip I have made one look, 
almost a mere glance that has given me 
memories, vision, inspiration so tre- 
mendous in their exhilaration as to 
more than pay me for any or all my 
expenditures on the journey, or the 
tour of the year. And I have met 
tourists and wanderers whose whole 
experience seemed spoiled, because of 
failure to kill a deer, or catch a bigger 
fish, or, worse yet, because of a tire 
(Continued on page 624) 
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