GRANNIE'S TOURING CAR

Across the Fence 



By Arvord Abernethy 

The other trip I was telling you about was made by Charnie and Aline Railbourn and Billy and Frances Wood. Charnie cautioned me just to use three lines in telling of their trip, but I couldn’t begin to list the towns they went through on their six thousand mile trip in three lines. 

To see as much new country and new state as they could, they went up through the eastern part of the Texas Panhandle, across the Oklahoma Panhandle, then Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and over into North Dakota. From there, they came back to the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore where the gigantic faces of four of our presidents are carved in a mountain cliff. 

They headed west from there and made a loop down through Yellowstone Park to see Old Faithful do its thing and some of the sights there. 

From there, they went back and struck Interstate 90 in Montana, went across Idaho and on into Washington. This took them through Spokane and on to Seattle. They got to see Mt. Rainier in all its beauty there. Mt. Rainier is often compared to and looked upon as Mt. Fuji is to the Japanese. 

The ultimate purpose of their trip was to visit with Glen and Joyce Rhode at Echo, Oregon. Joyce is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Amos French and a niece to Frances and Charnie. 

Glen is a big wheat farmer there, farming about 2700 acres of land. Due to the low rainfall there, they have to strip farm. This means that they will farm a strip one or two hundred yards wide this year and then let it lie idle the next year. These strips are alternated all across the field. Glen irrigates a small field of mint for the candy market. 

Glen is also an antique car hound, having many on hand now. One time when he was down here, he bought Mrs. Crain’s Model T and took it back. Charnie said that he had it shining now like a new dollar. (This Model T Touring Car originally belonged to my grandmother--Amanda Elizabeth (Stribling) Crain.)

Echo is near Pendleton where the famous Pendleton Roundup is held, so they attended it one day and reported that it was really wild and wooley. 

Leaving Echo, they went down the Columbia River to Portland and then on to the mighty Pacific. From there, they came back inland to see Crater Lake which is an odd sight within itself. The lake is one of the deepest in the United States; a lake of clear blue water that partially fills the crater of a volcano that blew its top. 

After a visit with the redwoods of California, the party headed east for a stopover and sightseeing trip through the Mormon Temple Square at Salt Lake City, then across Wyoming to Cheyenne where they took Interstate 25 across Colorado and then on home. 

Sorry, Charnie, I tried to, but just couldn’t keep this within three lines.

ACROSS THE FENCE