Trsnscontinental Joy-Riding

Horowhenua Chronicle, 6 January 1917, Page 4

Trsnscontinental Joy-Riding

4— (By H. F. Clark, in the ''Sunset" (Magazine.) Is your car ready for the cross-coun-tiry trip this fall? Is it greased up, are the spare parts in the tool box (but not too many of these), spare tires ready, and an extra tube or two? For if so, you've off on a. bettcrvoyage of discovery than anjy of which the Forty-niners dreamed. Never before has the country been so open to the motorist. With the barriers dawn in the Yellowstone and the red tape fast disappearing from the Yosemite and the other national parks, more and more machines are leaving the beaten roads and plunging into the real wotaders of the Continent. And fall is the time to go! There are no real terrors on the crosscountry trip. But there are many pc-sts that have sprung with long-distance. The worst of (these is the autohobo. He is not a tramp for that is beneath him. He usually wears boots of a typo mat trould soon kill an average hiker. But he intends to cover long distances at someone elst's expense and he does is. Early this summer two of this species left Califoria with the intension of riding to New York. They figured that every road would have some machines going that way, and many short rides added together would do the trick. And I have no doubt they arrived, for motorist is usually good-natured enough to carry anyone a short ride with him. These fellows were froml the west, but the eail autohobo thrives in the east, where many many vehicles constantly pass. There he has forsaken the bumpers of the smoky freight trains for the running board or spare seat of the automobile. And they all look alike to liim if they are going in the right direction. I once gave a little lift of 78 miles to one of these gentlemen. He was fully decked out in khaki uniform and I should have known better., He told us he was a member of an organization that had undertaken to prove that anyone could walk from York to Chicago and back, working for his board and not begging or stealing anything. Ho did not explain why this needed to be proved. One experience of this sort should have been enough, yet when an old man. hailed us we foolishly thought he was bound for the next town. No, indeed; he wanted to go nearly across the State. He proved to he a reformed hobo. That is, lie no longer uses the bumpers. He is now in the auto-hobo The day before we picked him up he had made a long run through south-western iPensylvania — longer than we had. This old mail claimed to be familiar with the part of Ohio where we then were. A road was torn up under a new paving operation and Ave turned left with the detour sign. The next five crossroads were unmarked, and at the sixth the old man assured us on his honour (1) that the right-hand ! road was the one to take. We foolishly followed his advice, and 'before ; we got back on the main connecting highway we had travelled ten miles more than the correct detou'r. As soon as we reached the next town we declined to carry him further, and he was ,picked up by anoth-

or machine before wo were wit of i town. ■ That fellow was both kinds of the pcst«—the aut'L-hcbo and tho "m.s-di-v-aclor." Of tile l«'o the Litter oausm_\s I lie motorist the read trouble. Wc have neveir been sent on a wrong .load ;by a. refutable garage, but many i times when there was no garage to eon ! suit, other people have mis-sent u.s, • But those two pests aire the only i things we know of that need to boith- '] er tho motorist on his long acrossI country trip. I " '