Road Trip

From Los Angeles to Detroit in fifteen days in 1921

Grandpa set out with Grandma and the two boys. Pavement ended as soon as they left Los Angeles. The car was a Nash. They took along shovel, water, and cans of gasoline tied on the running boards.

When they got to Needles, out in the Mojave Desert, Grandpa tried to talk Grandma into taking the train. She was city-bred. She'd never lacked the luxuries in Detroit, and he felt that roughing it would be too hard on her. But she wouldn't go without him.

She was determined to face the rigors of the drive with him. The heat was 105 and every day they carried people in from the desert. Grandpa, Grandma, and the boys camped out in the desert, five miles out of town. Every evening, Grandpa drove Grandma to the station when the train came in, but she refused to board it.

After ten days, he relented and took her and the boys in the car. Just then it began to rain, and everything turned to mud.

There was no road. In some places in Arizona and New Mexico, there were stretches five miles wide you could choose your own path through. In other places you rode in the ruts, and if you met a car coming in the other direction, one of you had to get your shovel and dig a path around for your car.

The boys amused themselves keeping track of license plate numbers.

When you met a car coming the other way, you called out, "How the road ahead?"

He'd say, "Terrible!"

Then he'd ask you how the road was where you'd been, and you'd say, "Terrible!"

Sometimes the car would have to cross deep gorges. Grandpa made Grandma and the two boys get out and walk it while he went down, across the riverbed, and up the other side.

There were no motels, and they camped out at night in the desert. It was beautiful sleeping in the open when the stars were out, but one time the mosquitoes were so terrible they got back into the car and left.

The rains were terrible that year. He came to one river thwere the water had risen so high that the bridge was practically floating on it. A whole line of cars were stopped there, looking at it, afraid to cross.

Grandpa drove up alongside the foremost car, which was a Nash just like his. He asked the driver, "Are you going to try it?"

He said, "Yes," so Grandpa said, "If you make it, I'll go after you."

The two Nashes made the crossing, but the other cars waited. Shortly after that, the bridge was washed out altogether, and no one else made it across for a long time.

The first paved road they found was in Clinton, Ohio. The tires, which had been guaranteed for something like 3,000 miles, were worn right down to the rim, and he had to get a new set.

It was an experience, Grandpa says.