SEPTEMBER (^2019) * REMINISCE.COM 49
RIDGELY JACKSON (below)
wrote with verve in her travel
journal (far left) of the 1938
road trip with her friends,
which included a stop at
Yosemite National Park (left).
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Climbing Pikes Peak,
at an elevation of 14,115 feet,
was a challenge in the
struggling Buick.
revelation. In wonder, the travelers saw “the
blue change into purple and back to blue and
then to gray, as the sun slipped down behind
the rim, illuminating the colors of the canyon
walls. We came away feeling that never again
would we look upon such a beautiful sight.”
She had lunch at Bright Angel campground
on Aug. 2. She must have taken her mule tour
down into the canyon from there, although
there is no mention of
it in the diary. (See the
mule train image on
the back cover.)
Aunt Ridgely often
spoke of that mule
ride, her eyes widening
as she remembered
her terror at looking
down the sheer cliffs.
Continuing their drive through Arizona,
and despite the heat of the desert in August
in a car with no air conditioning, the travelers
remained enthralled. Ridgely had a hard time
“staying on the straight and narrow,” resisting
the urge to take a piece of the Petrified Forest
with her. In the Painted Desert, she bought me
a beautiful sand painting.
They soaked up Navajo culture from Gallup
to Santa Fe along Route 66 in New Mexico,
but when they reached Taos, the Buick, which
they called Barney, needed repair.
Climbing Pikes Peak, at an elevation of 14 , 115
feet, was a challenge in the struggling Buick:
“Breathlessly, we watched the mileposts as we
slowly passed around the curves. In a little while,
Barney was hot, so we stopped to rest him.”
Ridgely saw “more beautiful wildflowers than
in any other state” west of Denver, but on the
eastern stretch of Colorado, there was ample
evidence of drought and poverty brought on
by the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.
As the Virginians wound through the
Allegheny Mountains and coal mines of West
Virginia, they were
impatient to get
home. No sight was
as sublime to them as
the Virginia state line.
“Our most efficient
driver...had safely
taken us over 7 , 977
miles of hot plains,
steep mountains and
dry deserts; through windstorms, sandstorms
and rainstorms; through heat and cold, over
good roads and bad, back to the Garden Spot
of the World. Our memories of scenes and
pleasures will stay with us as long as we live.”
I loved her stories about this trip and shared
her passion for seeing new vistas. In my life,
I lived in Hawaii, California and Connecticut,
covering thousands of miles across this great
nation, before finally settling in Vermont.
I savored every view because of Aunt
Ridgely’s descriptions of her own travels. •
lily
(lily)
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