I had planned this trip in my mind so many times and in so many ways that the only new sensation was that now it would surely come true, but I kept on planning it annually for five years before I actually started on the trip itself, and then I started from the Pacific Ocean and drove east.
The following account of this trip may be of sufficient interest to make it worth reading, at least, and if any one who reads it feels more hopeful of finishing the building of the castles he is now engaged upon, it will have answered its purpose.
I. Getting Started II. We get a Taste of the Desert III. The Real Thing in Deserts IV. Kelso, California V. Off Again VI. The Dixie Country of Utah VII. Along the Rio Grande Western Railroad VIII. Salina Canyon IX. Castle Valley X. Green River to Grand Junction XI. Grand Junction, Colorado XII. The Mountains XIII. The Plains of Colorado XIV. Our Party Grows Smaller XV. Alone in a Prairie Schooner
Sunset on the Mojave Desert Cacti Forest Provisioned for the Desert Entering the Mojave Canyon Emerging into the Desert A Desert Camp The Business Section of Kelso, California Joshua Palm, or Giant Cactus We Stop for Water Our First Camp East of Las Vegas A Sample of Mormon Architecture Mormon House and Irrigation Ditch A Ranch in Bear Valley Salina Canyon A Glimpse of Castle Valley The Clay Buttes near Green River We Abandon our Water Barrels A Camp on Black Mesa The Two Normans The Black Canyon of the Gunnison A Camp Site on the Gunnison Continental Divide Camp Below the Divide A Log Cabin on Bailey’s Mountain Nearing Civilization The Outfit Coming into Denver The Cook The Hostler Norman Bradley and Kate Norman Harris and Dixie Our Horses on the Open Range East of Denver A Mid-day Camp We Arrive at Kemah The Last Anchorage of the Prairie Schooner We turn Kate Out to Pasture Bess also is Turned Out: “Good Old Bess”
In planning an extended trip in this country, or Europe, the first thing one usually does is to consult, if convenient, friends who have been there before. After deciding when you will start, you look up time-tables or the departure of boats, reserve accommodations for your party, pack your grips or trunks, and you are ready to start. In driving overland it is different; you may find some one to consult with who has made the trip before you,--but the chances are that all those who have done so are dead. You will have no time-tables to consult and, if you go as we did, no reservations to make.