LIST OF SUPPLIES AS RECORDED IN THE LOG BOOK
4 teaspoon.
4 plastic forks
I meat fork
I tablespoon
I pancake turner
I can opemer and cork screw combination
I handled stew pan
I iron skillet (medium)
I tin pan (no handle)
32 paper plates
I plastic plate
4 cups (metal)
part roll paper towel
I box pancake hour
I box plain flour
2 cans chocolate syrup
3 am. cans milnot
I jar strawberry preserves
I can sugar
I box tide
I can spry
2 sack. cookies
4 dish towels
2 towels
2 wash cloths
I box salt
plastic bags
LOG RECORDS
JUNE 20. 1953. Saturday
At 2:15 PM. Saturday afternoon, June 20th, Lyle, Lawrence, David and Maurice left for the West Coast expedition.
At 5:45 PM we passed up Decorah. Iowa and at 6:05 we reached
the Minnesota state line. A total of 180 miles from Savanna.
At 10 PM Saturday night we refilled the gas tank at Jackson. Minn. We were 325 miles from home and averaging 45 miles an hour so far. With Lawrence driving at 11:30 we crossed the South Dakota line.
David and Lyle were sleeping in the back seat and Maurice was sleepier than heck in the front. But we were determined to drive straight through to Yellowstone non-stop.
Lyle took over driving west of Sioux Falls. After we got through Sioux Falls we drove for miles and gassed up in a little berg which we did not know the name of.We got weak coffee at this same jerk-water town at
1:40 AM.
So far we have not stopped for supper or anything except gas and change of drivers. We never run over 55 miles per hour. and at this speed a Dodge from Michigan keeps passing us.
5:00 AM we got gas at Murdo and changed drivers. David took over driving after getting to sleep two hours earlier. David drove 15 miles before he got sleepy again and Maurice took over driving.
David turned on the radio and got LA. That and the lack of trees is the first evidence that we are nearing our destination.
Lyle is now sawing logs in the back seat. We have met two cars in over a half hour.
JUNE 21, Sunday
It was 6:3(J AM when we got to the Badlands, after going up hill and down hill for an hour. At 7:30 we got out of the car and looked around. This was about the first interesting sight we had seen up to this point in the trip.
For our first meal we had bacon and eggs at 8AM Sunday morning near Wall, South Dakota. When we ate breakfast, the mosquitoes were so big that David mistook a bird for a mosquito.
We crossed the Cheyenne river at 9:15. It lies in a beautiful valley, surrounded by rolling hills
We finally reached the Black Hills. This was about the second highlight of the trip so far. Going through the Black Hills we saw a Buick up a creek without a paddle. He had driven off the side of an embankment because he had missed the curve.
We gassed up at 11:25 AM in Spear Fish, South Dakota, just before we crossed the Wyoming state line. We are going to take Route 14 into Yellowstone. At 12:15 we first sighted Devils Tower. Lyle took over driving. We are now headed for Devil's Tower at 12:30. At 3:40 PM we gassed up at Sheradon, about 20 miles before we get to the Big Horns.
At 4:30 we started up Big Horns. We all agreed we had never seen much a thrilling sight. We saw something Out of this world. Going up is a great thrill, but going down is the greatest.
We saw beautiful trout streams and water falls. We drove for miles around on top of the Big Horns.
All of us were scared going down except Lyle. Dig was the only one scared going up. I am sure glad we did not miss seeing it.
We left the Big Horns at 6:15. Now we are headed for Yellowstone. after coming through Cody at 7:20, we drove through Shoahone Canyon about 8:00. It was the most beautiful drive we have seen so far.
It was 10:15 when we camped outside of Yellowstone for the night. We were a total of 1213 miles from home. We woke up in the morning and were all about frozen when we ate breakfast.
JUNE 22, Monday
We gassed up at Pahorka tipi and fixed a leak in the gas tank.
Going into Yellowstone we saw snow below us and scenery and lakes with ice. We are now about the height of the Big Horns, 8550 ft. above sea level. We can see Grizzly Peak, which is 15000 ft. above sea level. We are still going up.
At Fishing Bridge we packed the front wheel bearings and tightened the brakes. We saw our first bears at 9 am. We fed about all our cookies to a bear that was standing on the running board.
Lyle and Dig took the pictures as David and I fed them. Dig read a bulletin on the danger of the bears to Barney the Bear.
We are heading North through Yellowstone and we just saw Old Faithful and a bunch of other geysers. We just got a picture of buffaloes. Dig got pictures of waterfalls, moose and real scenery. We just crossed the Montana state line at 10:30 AM.
It was agreed by all that Yellowstone had more marvelous sights than anything we had seen.
We paid an extra $30.00 for gas and expect to get to the Columbia River Valley.
Dig is now driving through Yankee Jim Canyon with Yellowstone river running through the valley, and steep, enormous mountains on each side. Just discovered that we have been leaking gas all the way out here. Now we are doing 3 to 4 miles on a gallon of gas.
When it rolled around to 2:30 we gassed up at Livingston Montana. After fixing the leak in the gas tank we did 18.2 mpg in the mountains and Yellowstone.
We are still driving in a valley, but David took the wrong highway, so we turned around in the middle of the road and went back to Livingston.
We got Ethel gas for the price of regular in Helena, the Capital of the Land of the Shining Mountains. As we were driving out of Helena we started up into the Mountains. Lyle took over the wheel. We had a better view than in the Big Horns.
As we came into Missoula, Montana we lost our brakes. JUNE 23, Tuesday
In the morning we drove into town without brakes and had the best donuts and coffee we ever tasted. While we got our brakes fixed we saw a 3D movie. With Lyle driving we are headed on to the next town. Dig and David are joking about taking a few steaks off from an old Hereford.
We gassed up at a small berg that we never discovered the name of. Maurice took over the driving and Dig and David are in the back seat. We just stopped for breakfast and to wash some dirty clothes. It is 10 am and we are in the middle of the mountains by a beautiful little stream.
With Dig driving and a full stomach for all, we pulled out on the road again at 11:10 am.
We crossed the Idaho state line, as it is called, the Land of Nature's Wonderland. Dig just took a picture of the three of us by the Idaho line.
At 1:25 we crossed the Washington state line. After we got into the state we drove on our first concrete roads. All the state highways in Montana and Idaho and Wyoming, total of about 1500 are all blacktop roads.
