Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1910 — DESERT AS A RESORT. [ARTICLE]

DESERT AS A RESORT.

Camplnar In California Oaala aa Enjoyable aa the Sea Shore. A desert sounds like a strange place in which to' camp for pleasure, but Charles Francis Saunders and his wife spent several enjoyable weeks on one part of our great western desert. Mr. Saunders says: "To the newcomer on the desert usually the first cause of surprise ia the variety of Its scenery. One' ha bltually thinks of it as a flat, verdureless, monotonous expanse. In reality our western deserts present within comparatively small areas the greatest diversity of topography—mountain chains and foothills, valleys and aroyos (dry, of course, except for a few hours after some, heavy storm in the mountains), sandy flats and rolling plains bowlder-piled -or dotted with green bushes set about in places like shrubbery in an artificial park. "Spring is the most enjoyable time oi the year for the desert camp—late April or May for the elevated Mo java region, March or even earlier for the more southern, low-lying Colorado desert of California. The mornings, evenings and nights are then superbcool and bracing and more-of heaven than of earth; the mid-days are hot in the sun and made for siestas in the shadow of great rocks or on the shady outside of a tent. The inside of the tent is usually unendurable during the middle of the day, the temperature there rising higher than in the ful) sunshine.” * Mr. Saunders’ German guide, “Dutch Jake,” has become so fond of the desert that, in taking leave of his “tenderfoot" friends at this end of their camping trip, he says: “New York? Humph”—he says in his rough-way—“ Yes, ,1 has been in New York, unt made yon fool of mineself. No, no. Mister* i takes my bunch of burrows, unt some beans and bacon in de saddle hags unt always vater in the canteen, unt I shtay in de desert It's healt’y here unt dere ain’t nobody vot robs you, unt I knows places vere a man can find yet lots of mineral. Me for der desert, Mister; fools shtays In New York.” —Recreation Magazine.