Page:Motoring Magazine and Motor Life October 1913.djvu/9

S. G. V. car in scenically beautiful Sonoma County, near Geysers.

To the Geysers in a Day

By W. F. Hamilton

The motor car is the thing. And generally the moment one comes into possession of a motor car, the thought runs to touring. Having conceived the idea—in California if not elsewhere—visualization is easy. Thousands of attractive tours, both long and short, at once present themselves in inviting array. Choosing becomes difficult, if not a positive problem. However, each one offers so many distinctive scenic thrills, natural wonders and myriad out-of-door sensations that to make a wrong selection is but remotely possible. The condition of the road is the serious question. If good, "go to it," and the chances are that you will return home—tired, perhaps—but otherwise in the most pleasant frame of mind.

We chose as our destination the Geysers in Sonoma County. Properly, the trip should consume the greater portion of two days, for when we arrived in Sausalito, rounding out the trip, the speedometer showed 206 miles traveled; and here let it be said that 206 miles over winding mountain roads, where caution breeds tedium, is not so easy on nerves as the tyro might suppose. Then, again, the country one passes through on this most delightful of trips is so worth while seeing thoroughly that to hurry on against time seems a wanton affront to Dame Nature, the metaphorical lady having done so much to make herself attractive to the senses. Strange to say, Nature's appeal is ultra physical; it is metaphysical, for the chords of the spirit are deftly struck. One is intensely aware of something other than what is reflected on the retina of the eye or sensed through ears and olfactories. The Indians caught a glimpse of this underlying and sustaining something when they called a certain lake "the smile of the Great Spirit." White calls it "Silence," and devotes pages to the description, but it is enough to know that it is there, and that it adds much to the pleasure of touring.

Yet a day was all we permitted ourselves for the trip, which included taking pictures and the complete, though cursory, exploration of that natural wonder—the Geysers. And we filled it full. At five-thirty a. m., preparations for the trip were under way, and three o'clock had struck—nearly twenty-two hours later—when "short sheets were making the bed seem longer."

The 6:45 boat carried us to Sausalito, along with many other machines, motorcyclists, "footers," etc., on their early way for a day's outing. At seven-thirty the speedometer was set at zero, and a start for the Geysers made. The road that winds along the bay leading out of Sausalito is not in good condition. It should be cared for at once, as much travel by automobile must go this way when touring Marin County.

Most motorists have taken the trip to Healdsburg by way of Petaluma and Santa Rosa, so there is but little to be described, other than the condition of the road. In the main, roads between those named towns are reasonably good, and a steady pace of thirty miles an hour may be maintained with comfort to the passengers in the car. Near Corte Madera