Having spent some time in this vicinity a few years before, I knew there was no probability of the storm abating for hours, and that we would have to drive only about four miles to get out of its path, for it was coming out of the mouth of a canyon to the north of us. So we pushed on, blinded and choked with sand, forcing the horses to keep the road, and finally, after what seemed like hours, we drove up and out of the storm, and could catch our breath and look around.
Not having a mirror handy we could not tell how sandy we looked, but we knew how sandy we felt, and laughed at each other’s appearance until we cried the sand out of our eyes, and then decided to stop at the first convenient place and clean up before going into town. This cleaning-up process took so long that it was noontime before we reached San Bernardino, and we pitched camp that night about where we had expected to stop for lunch. “If we are to encounter a sand storm on the desert worse than this one,” we said, “we shall feel sorry for ourselves.”
The country we have come through thus far, from Los Angeles to San Bernardino, about sixty-two or sixty-three miles, is doubtless the most thickly settled valley of California, and probably has the most valuable improvements. Outside the towns and villages, the land is completely taken up by orange, lemon, and walnut groves, besides vineyards, interspersed with fields of alfalfa. Nearly every one has electric light and telephone, and ample transportation is furnished by three steam roads and many street railway and interurban lines.
From where we camped to-night we could look down over this valley, from which, as it grew dark, the lights came out like so many stars, and we realize that it will be many days before we will again be in sight of green fields and civilization, for to-morrow we are to leave all this behind and cross the San Bernardino range of mountains on our way to Daggett in the Mojave Desert.
Tuesday, May seventeenth, our first morning in a real camp “away from anywhere,” as the Doctor said, was started in true camping style. We were up at four-thirty, each busy at his particular work, Bob getting breakfast, the Doctor packing the wagon, preparatory to starting, and greasing the axles (this was done regularly every other day), and I had the horses to look after. Then came breakfast, and after that, while the dishes were being washed and odds and ends put into the wagon, I harnessed the horses, hitched them to the wagon, put the lead harness on Dixie, and we were ready to start.