We had far too many! They were a perfect nuisance! Yet each traveler needs a heavy coat, a thin coat or sweater, a duster and a rug or two, and there is a huge bundle already. Then possibly a dressing-case for each, and surely a big valise of some sort, either suit-case or motor trunk. Added to this are innumerable necessities—Blue Books, a camera, food paraphernalia, an extra hat—most women want an extra hat, and men, too, for that matter—and though goggles and veils are worn most of the time, they have to be put somewhere. All of these last items go too wonderfully in a silk bag such as I described as having been given us. It was of taffeta, made exactly like an ordinary pillow-case with a running string at one end; it was about twenty inches wide and thirty inches long. E. M.’s straw hat, Celia’s extra hat, and mine all went in it, beside veils and gloves and other odds and ends. It weighed nothing; it went on top of everything else and, tied through the handle of a dressing-case by its own strings, was in no danger of blowing out. Why hats traveled in it without crushing like broken eggshells, I don’t know, but they did.

Offering advice on clothes for a motor trip is much like offering advice on what to wear walking up the street. But on the chance that in a perfectly commonplace list there may be an item of use to someone, I have inventoried below a list of things that I personally should duplicate, if I were taking the trip over again:

First: A coat and pleated skirt of a material that does not show creases. Maltreat a piece first, to see. With this one suit, half a dozen easily washed blouses and a sleeveless overwaist of the material of the skirt, which, worn over a chiffon underblouse, makes a whole dress, instead of an odd shirtwaist and skirt. These underblouses are merely separate chiffon linings with sleeves and collars, and half a dozen can be put in the space of a pound candy-box—yet give the same service as six waists to your dress.

On an ordinary motoring trip such as over the various well-worn tours of Northeastern States or of the Pacific Coast or Europe, where you arrive in the early afternoon with plenty of time to rest for a while and dress for dinner, several restaurant or informal evening-dresses may be useful, but crossing the continent, unless you stop over several days in cities where you have friends, in which case you can send a trunk ahead, it is often late when you arrive, and any dressing further than getting clean and tidy does not strongly appeal to you. Besides one suit and blouses, a very serviceable dress to take would be a simple house dress of some sort of uncreasable silk. There is a Chinese crêpe that nothing wrinkles—not to be confused with many varieties of crêpes de chine that crease like sensitive plants at a mere touch.

If I expected to go through towns where I might be dining out, I would add an evening dress of black jet or cream lace—two materials that stand uncreasingly any amount of packing. Otherwise my third and last would be a silk skirt and jacket—the skirt of black and white up and down stripes with white chiffon blouses, and the jacket black. The taffeta should be of the heavy soft variety that does not crack and muss. The skirt should be unlined and cut with straight seams gathered on a belt; a dress that folds in a second of time and in a few inches of space. With the coat on, it is a street dress; coat off (with a high girdle to match the skirt), it is whatever the top of the blouse you wear makes it.

A duster is, of course, indispensable. A taffeta one is very nice, especially when you want something better-looking, but on a long journey taffeta cracks, dirt constantly sifts through it and it can’t be washed as linen can. In the high altitudes of the Southwest, a day of tropical heat is followed by a penetratingly cold night. The thermometer may not be actually low and the air seem soft and delicious, but it sifts through fabrics in the way a biting wind can, and you are soon thankful if you have brought a heavy wrap. When you need it, nothing is as comfortable as fur. I took an old sealskin coat and I don’t know what I should have done without it. On my personal list, a mackintosh has no place. If it rains, the top is up, and to keep wind out, I’d rather have fur.

Nor are shoes under ordinary fortunate circumstances important. But on my list are “velvet slippers.” Scarcely your idea of appropriate motoring footwear, but if your seat is the front one over the engine, you will find velvet the coolest material there is—cooler than buckskin, or suède, or kid or canvas—much! And if you want to walk, your luggage, after all, is with you.

Every woman knows the kind of hat she likes to wear. But does every woman realize, which Celia and I did not, that a hat to be worn nine or eleven hours across a wind-swept prairie must offer no more resistance than the helmet of a race driver? A helmet, by the way, made to fit your head and face is ideally comfortable. A hat that the wind catches very little won’t bother you in a few hours, but at the end of ten, your head will feel stone-bruised. An untrimmed toque, very small and close, and tied on with a veil is just about as comfortable as a helmet. It has the disadvantage of having no brim, but yellow goggles mitigate the glare, and it is the brim, even though it be of the inverted flower-pot turn-down, that is a pocket for wind that at the end of a few hours pulls uncomfortably.

A real suggestion to the woman who minds getting sunburnt, is an orange-colored chiffon veil. It must be a vivid orange that has a good deal of red in it. Even with the blazing sun of New Mexico and California shining straight in your face, a single thickness of orange-colored chiffon will keep you from burning at all. If you can’t see through chiffon, but mind freckling or burning, to say nothing of blistering, sew an orange-colored veil across the lower rims of your goggles and wear orange-colored glasses. Cut a square out of the top so as to leave no sun space on your temples, and put a few gathers over the nose to allow it to fit your face. Fasten sides over hat like any veil. The Southwestern sun will burn your arms through sleeves of heavy crêpe de chine, but the thinnest material of orange—red is next best—protects your skin in the same way that the ruby glass of a lantern in a photographer’s developing room protects a sensitive plate.

Wear the thinnest and least amount of underwear that you can feel decently clad in, so as to get as many fresh changes as possible in the least space, because of the difficulty in stopping often to have things laundered. What they put in the clothes in Southern California I don’t know, but in any mixture of linen and silk, the silk has been apparently dipped in blue dye. A cream-colored silk-and-linen shirt of E. M.’s that happened to have the buttonholes worked in silk, is now a stippled green with buttonholes of navy blue. It is rather putting your belongings to the test of virtue—as those which are pure silk wash perfectly well. If I were going again I should take everything I could of thin crêpe de chine. It seems to be very easy to launder, and is everywhere returned in a clean and comfortably soft condition, whereas linen often comes back uncertain as to color and feeling like paper.

Although of more service on boats or trains, or in Europe where private baths are not often to be had, a black or dark silk kimono and a black lace bed-cap, if you ever wear bed-caps, are invaluable assets to anyone who dislikes walking through public corridors in obvious undress. My own especial treasures, acquired after many unsuccessful attempts, are a wrapper cut the pattern of an evening wrap, of very soft, black silk brocade. It rolls up as easily as any kimono, and takes scarcely any space. The cap is a very plain “Dutch” one, of thread lace with a velvet ribbon around it. A wrapper that isn’t obviously a wrapper, is sometimes very convenient. You could make believe it was an evening wrap, if you were very hard pressed.

And above everything, in traveling you want clothes that are uncomplicated. The ones that you get into most easily are the ones you put on most often. Underblouses, such as I have described above, are a perfect traveler’s delight, because there is no basting in, or trying to clean collars, cuffs, etc. A fresh underblouse with lace trimming, rolled like a little bolster, measures one and a half inches by seven.

And remember: Plain skirts crease in half-moons across the back, pleated or very full ones don’t. An orange veil prevents sunburn. Western climate is very trying to the skin, so that you need cold cream even if you don’t use it at home. A lace veil of a rather striking pattern is at times of ugliness a great beautifier.

Clothes for men are a little out of my province. E. M. had some khaki flannel shirts, breeches and puttees that seemed to be very serviceable. At least he was able to spend any amount of time rolling on the road under the machine, and still brush off fairly well. He had a sweater and an ulster and two regular suits of clothes to change alternately at the end of the day. His evening clothes, tennis flannels, etc., were sent through by express.

To send one hundred and fifty pounds from New York to San Francisco costs fifteen dollars.

FOOD EQUIPMENT

Don’t take a big, heavy, elaborate lunch basket. If you want to know what perfect comfort is, get a tin breadbox with a padlock, and let it stay on the floor of the tonneau. In the bottom of it you can keep tins of potted meats, jars of jam, and a box of crackers, some milk chocolate, or if you like better, nuts and raisins. And on top you can put everything you lay your hands on! Books, sweaters, medicine case, and a pack of oiled paper to wrap luncheons in. We had a solidified alcohol lamp, a ten-cent kettle, and thermos bottles, a big thermos food jar, which we filled with ice cream if the day was hot, and one of the bottles with cocoa if it was cool. Coffee (if you put cream in it) has always a corked, musty taste, but cocoa is not affected, neither is soup. Food tastes better if you don’t mix your bottles. Keep the jar for ice cream, if you like ice cream, a bottle for cocoa or soup, and two for ice or hot water. On long runs in the Far West, a canvas water bag is convenient. You can buy one at almost any garage, and it keeps water quite wonderfully fresh and cool.

On top of our permanent supplies we put the daily luncheons we took from the hotels: sandwiches, boiled eggs and fruit and the above-mentioned cocoa or ice cream. Cocoa we bought at the hotels, but our favorite place to buy ice cream was at a soda-water fountain.

The tins in our bread box we hoarded as a miser hoards gold—as a surplus that we might need to keep us alive; and, as is the common end of most misers, when we got to San Francisco and our journey was over, the greater part was still left—to give away.

EXPENSES

The following pages of actual expenses copied out of our diaries may be useful as a table of comparison by which other travelers can form an idea of what their own are likely to be.

For some the trip will cost more, but on the other hand, it can be done for very much less. In every case we had the kind of rooms that are assigned to those who, without questioning the price, asks for “good outside rooms with baths.” Undoubtedly, there were in many cases more expensive ones to be had, but in all cases there were cheaper ones.

Our restaurant bills, however, were comparatively light. We seldom ordered more than three dishes each, and the restaurant charges to people of very substantial appetite, will run more rather than less. On extras, of course, anyone could add or subtract indefinitely, but the details noted may serve as a scale of current charges.

The garage bills speak for themselves. Each man knows how far his own car can go on a gallon, and how often he wants it washed. No one can count his repairs in advance, but our garage bills, however, were certainly very much heavier than average. E. M.’s car is at best an expensive one to run, and on this trip it was at its worst, having been driven without overhauling for two years.

DAILY EXPENSE ACCOUNT