Page:Motoring Magazine and Motor Life July 1915.djvu/14

12 A 6,000 mile circuit of the finest scenic features of America, including every prominent National Park in the West, is the trip just planned by Harold L. Arnold of Southern California.

“It is such a wonderful trip,” says Arnold, “that if those who are able to indulge in such a vacation could know just how, when and where to go, there would be hundreds of machines on the route this year. To make a transcontinental journey, or any long motor trip, one of the first essentials is plenty of weather proof storage room in the machine. The old-time way was to pack the outfit on the running boards, hang it on the lamps, or strap it to the top irons, as best one could. That way makes the best car look like a peddler’s wagon and in less than a day after leaving home this outside luggage is so full of dust and dirt that it takes away half the pleasure of the trip.

“In fitting up one of our cars we had this storage in mind, and we found that the 100 per cent extra room they provided was sufficient to carry all our luggage, camp blankets, sleeping cots, folding chairs, cooking utensils, camp stove and food supplies.

“This equipment is all under a weather proof and tight-hinged back, and when we are packed up for the long National Park trip there won’t be an extra piece of luggage showing anywhere on the car. The route we have laid out traverses the grandest scenic regions in the West.

“In California the itinerary includes Sequoia and General Grant National Parks, Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees, Lake Tahoe and Mt. Shasta, with a stop en route at the Exposition. The Pacific Highway will be taken from San Francisco north through Oregon and Washington, visiting on the way the celebrated Crater National Park, with its wonderful bottomless lake two thousand feet below the rim of the crater. Equally interesting is Rainier National Park in Washington, where the government has built a new motor road right to the foot of Nisqually Glacier. At Seattle the National Park route turns east over Snoqualmie Pass through the Coast Range to Spokane, and through the famous Coeur d’Alene mining district and past the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines.

“Just within Montana and right up on the roof of the United States, as it were, the motorist will spend a delightful week among the wonders of Glacier National Park. Southwest from there the road crosses the continental divide into Butte, the site of the greatest copper mine in the world.

“Turning directly south at Livingstone, Yellowstone National Park is visited, and the motorist will there see a region of wonders not duplicated anywhere on earth. The spouting geysers, in themselves, are worthy of the long journey, and a dozen and one other curious sights will be stored away in the memory as part of the best of the National Park circuit.

“From the Yellowstone the route continues south to the Lincoln Highway and east through Wyoming and Cheyenne. Then again south to Denver, Estey National Park, Garden of the Gods, Pike’s Peak, Royal Gorge, Skyline Drive, Raton Pass and along the Santa Fe route to Albuquerque. West through Arizona this wonderful route traverses a hundred interesting spots, the Petrified Forests, Cliff Dwellings, Meteor Crater, Sunset Volcanoes, Grand Canyon, Painted Desert and others too numerous to mention.

“The last leg of this six thousand mile trip is into Los Angeles via Needles and