Even as you roll along the road, there are scores of interesting things that can be noted. If you like engineering, for example, there will no doubt be new bridges to study along the way. If photography is your hobby, there will be many pictures to be made. Even if you are not looking for good "shots" with your camera, you can enjoy beautiful sights, shapely trees, and quiet streams.

Excellent Highway Engineering. Will the future see more highways like these?

A lover of nature will enjoy noting the different kinds of trees that line the road or the way the birds are assembling for their flight to the south. In the spring there are fields of wild flowers to see, while in the fall there are great splashes of color in the woods. Even your sense of smell can be trained to help you enjoy your trip in the family car. Can you close your eyes, for example, and tell when you are passing through the woods, past a newly cut hayfield, along a stream or lake, or close to a farmer's barn? If you can do these things, you are learning to appreciate the use of an automobile.

In Conclusion

At one time in this country the slogan of a man running for office was "A Full Dinner Pail." Tomorrow it may perhaps be "A car for every man, woman, and child in America" if the candidate wishes to be elected. Have you a car? If not, don't worry. You will own one sooner than you expect, for "autoitis" has hit this continent and it's a very contagious disease. Yes, we have to label it "disease" because it still is in its first stages of contagion, and since many take it and few know how to handle it, quite a lot of unhappiness results. Let education be the doctor and you yourself one of his assistants.

Hilaire Belloc says, "It is the road which is the channel of all trade, and, what is more important, of all ideas." We want to keep American ideas ever alert and active. Promise that keen mind of yours both a full dinner pail and a car, and go on a roamin' tour if you seek true happiness.

Some Interesting Things To Do

1. Ask a gasoline dealer for a road map of your section of the country. List the places in your vicinity that arc worth a visit. Circle the names on the map and trace the routes in colored pencils.

2. List any books you have enjoyed that have stressed specific localities and would be splendid to read in their own setting. On an original sketch-map put a dot for your house and draw a straight line to the places which you could reach by automobile or on foot. Name the book and author and place.

3. Compare the expense of some of these trips outlined above (1) if you went by bus, train, or boat; (2) if you went by car.

4. Make up some games to play in the family car. Check odors, with eyes closed, of coffee districts, damp woods, smoke, hayfield, etc.; noises heard, as city cries, swish of passing cars, birds, etc.; feelings, as dampness, altitude, bumpiness of road; tastes, of hot dogs, ice cream, etc.; strange sights.

5. Find some funny jokes about the autoist and tell them to the class.

6. Write to the State Department of Parks and to the National Park Service, Washington, D. C, and ask for information about different parks.

7. Plan and give a class program on America's Scenic Wonders.

8. Make a budget of expenses of a trip from your home to Yellowstone National Park, Niagara Falls, Pikes Peak, or some other place. This budget should include such items as railroad fare or automobile expense, meals, lodging, clothing, and miscellaneous items such as park admissions, amusements, and tolls.

9. Collect pictures, souvenirs, and other available materials showing interesting places to visit.

10. Plan an inexpensive imaginary vacation for your family that will keep you "on the road" a week. Where will you go? What routes will you take? What will the vacation cost?

11. Make a recreation schedule of auto trips for your family for the next two months.

12. What menus would you suggest for a family picnic?

13. Find a copy of the short one-act play "A Happy Journey from Trenton to Camden" by Thornton Wilder and read it to the class. Act it out, if you like. (You will find this play in The First Reader, by Alexander Woollcott.)

14. Write a short play about an auto trip. Give it before an audience.

15. Read some of the books on automobile travel that your library has and call the attention of the class to the ones they should not miss.

16. What kind of cars, if any, will we have in 1950? What sort of roads?

17. What is your opinion of autoing as a leisure-time activity?

Helpful References

Brimmer, F. E., Motor Camper aft. Collins, F. L., American Travelcharts and Travel Chats. Dunn, E. D., Double-Crossing America by Motor.

Ferguson, M. F., Motor Camping on Western Trails. Greene, A. B., Lighthearted Journey. Halliburton, R., The Royal Road to Romance.

Jessup, E., The Motor Camping Book.

Kimball and Larned, The Trailer for Pleasure and Business. Long and Long, Motor Camping. Nixon, L., American Vacations. Peck and Johnson, Roundabout America. Strong, W. M., How to Travel without Being Rich. Tatchell, F., The Happy Traveller. Van de Water, F. F., The Family Flivvers to Frisco.