Read Ebook: Motor Camping by Long J C John Cuthbert Long John D John Dietrich

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As for safety's sake it will be best to drink boiled water, it will be well to take a supply of ground coffee in tins. Most people find boiled water taken in the form of coffee more palatable.

If not sufficiently sturdy to make a fire without them, matches in a waterproof container should be included. However, the real pioneer can make out without pail, skillet or matches. If he is doubtful of his skill at making fire without matches, he may provide himself with one of the fire-making outfits sold for about a dollar by the Boy Scouts' supply house in New York. This outfit will enable him to make a fire from two pieces of wood in about a minute. If the motor camper has to make his own fire with pieces of wood, he will be better master of his fire, will use it more skillfully, and extinguish it more carefully.

Making His Own Coffee-pot

He will need a container in which to make coffee or boil food. The tin pail would answer, or the skillet. But we are supposing that these have been discarded. If so, the pioneer camper can make his own container from a short length of log. It can be done. It has been done. Here is how to make a dug-out coffee-pot in which coffee can be made or food boiled. Cut a small log of young maple or black birch about two feet long and six inches through. Flatten this on one side. Chamfer out on this side a shallow hollow or trough one and three-quarter inches deep, three and a half inches wide, and fourteen inches long. Finish it out with a knife and hot coals. This trough or container will hold one quart of water. Cut a pouring lip at one end.

Boiling Water in Wood

Now you are ready to proceed. First fill your container with water. Next heat six stones about the size of a hen's egg in the camp-fire until they are red-hot. Quartz stones are the best. You will be likely to find some in the bed of any near-by stream, or in any gravel formation. Slip these hot stones into the water carefully, one at a time, and at the end of your wooden pot. Six of these stones will bring to a boil a quart of water in less than five minutes. Of course, in winter with water ice-cold it will take a little longer. It will probably take you an hour or more to make the wooden bowl as described. However, the bowl does not wear out, and you can keep it for future use. On the other hand it may be more fun to make a new bowl at each camp.

To make coffee or tea put a pinch of tea or a small spoonful of coffee in your drinking cup, pour it full of the boiling water, let it stand for four or five minutes, and it will be ready to drink.

Soup may be made in one of these wooden bowls from prepared soup stock such as Erbswurst, or from any other of the prepared, dried soups on the market. To make soup place two teaspoonfuls of the powder in your bowl, pour in a quart of water, stir up, and then begin slowly adding your red-hot stones, one at a time, at one end of the trough. Ten stones will keep the soup boiling for ten minutes--stones, as mentioned, the size of a hen's egg. In about fifteen minutes one-half of the soup will be boiled away and there will be left a pint of rich, satisfying soup.

Cat-tail Roots Are Good to Eat

However, we have been supposing that this pioneer camper proposes to live off the country, and that he has taken no supplies with him, unless it be his coffee, tea, and tobacco. In such a case he will have to find wild food. This is more easily done than might be thought. For example, in almost every section you will not have to travel far without finding the common cat-tail reeds. You will find them along the coastal shores. They are almost sure to be growing in the swampy spots found in the folds of the landscape or in the marshes along the rivers and the margins of lakes. Wherever there is a swamp, there you are pretty sure to find some of these cat-tails. They usually stand in the muck or in very shallow water.

Dig out some of these cat-tail stalks with your hand-ax, or grub them out with your fingers. If you have a shovel along the job will be easier. Dig up some of these cat-tails and you will find running from each clump of these reeds to the next clump a root about an inch in diameter; botanically this root is called a rhizome. The root will be covered with a brown fibrous bark which can easily be stripped off. The core within this bark can be boiled like an Irish potato, is more nutritious, and tastes better. During the starvation times of the Valley Forge winter Washington's soldiers discovered that these cat-tail roots were good to eat and partly lived on them.

After you have procured some of these cat-tail roots, slice them across with your knife into thin slices, and boil in your wooden pot as directed for soup and you will find them both satisfying and appetizing.

The Blue Flower Water Lily Is Tasty

There are other roots, too, besides the cat-tails. Alongside most streams, ponds, or swamps the arrow-leaf, blue-flowered water lily will be found growing. This grows in shallow water, and the roots, or rather tubers, lie practically on the surface of the bottom of the water, and are very easily dislodged. Being lighter than water, too, they will float up to the surface when torn loose. These tubers reach about the size of black walnuts, and may be cooked as the cat-tail roots and with equal satisfaction. The tubers of the yellow water lily are good also, but as they lie under from two to four feet of water they are not so easily gotten at.

Still another root that makes fair eating is the bulb of the wood lily. These may be found in clearings and at the edges of forests. A slightly different variety of the same plant is somewhat frequent in open fields and is known as the meadow lily. These bulbs are rather loose in formation and may be easily pulled apart. They cook quickly.

For those who like something pungent, wild onion and wild garlic will fill the bill.

The motor camper who is going it wild and living off the country can find much that is edible if he will keep his eyes open. For example, there are the berries, varying with the season--wild strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries; even elderberries and pokeberries are not to be despised. The writer is aware that some people think the pokeberry poisonous, and in fact it is so characterized in some books. Nevertheless, in some sections of the country the poorer folk use them as filler for pies, and the children eat them raw without any apparent ill effects. However, they are not especially palatable, being rather tasteless.

Wild Rice Is Palatable

In many localities east of the Rocky Mountains, and particularly in the Northwest after September, what is called wild rice will be found growing in shallow lakes or ponds. This is not the white rice of commerce, but its little stick-like seeds are far more nutritious, and more tasteful also, than tame rice. Two young fellows in a canoe or sharpie, one to row, while the other with a stick knocks off the rice into the boat by striking the heads, can gather a bushel of the grain into the bottom of the boat in the course of a forenoon. However, this rice takes about an hour to boil until done, and it is difficult to cook it successfully without a skillet or other metal container. If parboiled for fifteen minutes in the wooden pot already described, and then left to soak overnight, it can be cooked done the next morning in another fifteen minutes.

The wild motor camper, if he looks about him, will find many appetizing herbs which he can boil in his skillet. He can find such herbs as yellow or curly dock , the dandelion, the young pokeberry shoots, which may be treated in cooking like asparagus, and numerous other herbs, according to the section through which he journeys.

This wild camper, naturally, will take along gun and fishing tackle. One thing he must not forget, and that will be to familiarize himself with the fishing and game laws of the state through which he tours. In another part of this book general information will be found concerning the fishing and game laws of the various states, the open and closed seasons for the different kinds of fish and game, as also the fees charged for licenses to fish or hunt. Yet, as these laws are constantly changing from time to time, it would be wise for the prospective fisher or hunter to write to the State Fish and Game Commissioner for the latest information.

Muskrats Are Plentiful

We are aware that in many sections of our country the fish are few and the game equally scarce. Yet there is nearly always some kinds of fish that may be found and taken lawfully, as also some kinds of game.

Then, too, there are some kinds of toothsome fish and game that the hunter or fisherman is not likely to consider. In the game line take the humble musquash. This is the only wild animal that is holding its own against man, and is actually increasing in numbers in the settled sections of this country. It is usually called a muskrat, but it is not a rat and has no musk. It tastes like squirrel and is equally palatable. It is nocturnal in its habits, and about the only way to take it is to trap it. This last is not especially difficult, but the average wild motor camper probably does not know how. To catch the musquash it is necessary to use a small steel trap which should be placed in the water at the entrance to the burrow of the animal which can be located at the edge or bank of stream, pond, or lake by watching for the little tracks which the animal makes in the mud.

Another wild creature is a shell fish which the ordinary motor camper would never think of. We refer to the crawfish which is found in almost all the muddy streams of the Mississippi Valley, and can be netted, or caught on a hook. This little animal when boiled gets red like a boiled lobster, and tastes better than lobster. Of course, almost everywhere along the seashore one may find clams, mussels and the like for food. Shell fish may also be found in some fresh-water streams.

The fish or game after being scaled or skinned and dressed may be fried in the skillet, or even boiled in the sort of wooden pot already described. However, the most satisfactory way to prepare it if you are motor camping wild is to roast it on a wooden spit. The spit may be a wooden rod or stick from which the bark has been peeled. This may be thrust through the fish or game, and the roasting done in front of or over the camp fire. Fish should be secured to the spit by being tied on with string or strips of bark. Otherwise as it cooks it is likely to fall off into the fire, or to the ground.

Jerusalem Artichoke a Food

The resourceful and observant wild motor camper will discover many sources of food in addition to those already alluded to. In many parts of the country he will find the tall stalks of the Jerusalem artichoke , also known as the Indian potato. The potato-like tubers of this plant were eaten by the Indians who cultivated the Jerusalem artichoke for these tubers. They are good boiled, and even raw they taste much better than raw Irish potato. This plant has a yellow flower, looking somewhat like the yellow daisy or black-eyed susan, except that the central button is yellowish green.

Acorns Can Be Made Edible

Still another source of food for the wild motor camper are the nuts. These, of course, are not available until fall. The most easily obtainable nuts, if we may call them nuts, are the different varieties of acorns. Some of them are quite astringent, but acorns from the white oak are least so, and even those most astringent may be dried over the fire, pounded up, placed in a cheese-cloth bag, and leached by pouring water through the mass until it runs clear without any yellowish tinge. Boil what remains to a mush and it will be found quite eatable and nourishing.

Late in the summer the globular mushroom may be found on grassy slopes. It is called the beef-steak mushroom. When dried it becomes the common puff-ball. Sliced and fried it is better and more nourishing than the egg plant. It is not untasty raw. When old and dry, this mushroom makes a valuable fire-punk and will carry fire for a long time. When young and fresh, it is solid white all the way through, and may be easily peeled and sliced.

Beware of Certain Mushrooms

Other varieties of mushrooms had best be viewed with suspicion, unless you are expert at distinguishing them. Never eat mushrooms with white or yellow gills growing out of a bulb or cup--they are deadly.

WHERE TO GO

The American motor camper has a continental range. Since the construction of the great transcontinental highways our people have roamed back and forth east and west from coast to coast and north and south from the Canadian border to the Gulf.

The summer touring is mostly from East to West and vice versa. In winter the movement is from North to South and back again with the approach of warmer weather.

A transcontinental tour is now a comparatively easy matter, provided the motorist carries along the necessary equipment. Formerly a motor trip across from coast to coast was somewhat hazardous, and sure to be at least an expensive and a tiring undertaking. Rapidly improving road conditions on the main routes of travel are fast making the transcontinental journey one of enjoyment and interest.

The camper, for an ocean to ocean trip, requires but little, if anything, more in the way of equipment than is needed for a week-end tour. With the steady increase of cross-country travel the traveler can secure all necessary supplies in practically every village along the main highways.

In taking such a long tour as across the continent it is well to pay a little more care to the camping outfit. Here the increased comfort will fully compensate for some added outlay. It is recommended also that the tourist be sure to have along a shovel, ax, one hundred feet of five-eighth-inch rope, and a tarpaulin. The likelihood of mud on some of the trails east of the Rocky Mountains makes this equipment advisable. Two desert water bags should be taken along if the route leads through arid country. They may be hung at some place on the car where the evaporation of the water which soaks through will cool the contents. Fill with soft water whereever that is procurable, and at every opportunity.

For a long tour load the car light. You will not need to load up with gasoline or oil cans. Remember that you will have no difficulty in obtaining gasoline along the main traveled routes, and need not carry an extra supply. But it will be well to fill your tank at every station, whether it is empty or not, for thus you will be sure to have a sufficient supply of gas until you reach the next place. Of course it will be wise to have extra parts, and before starting on such a long tour the car should be equipped with new casings on all wheels and two spares with the addition of a few good inner tubes. If you have bad luck with blow-outs, new casings can be bought at almost any town along the route.

You will be able to buy needed food supplies along the route, but it will be just as well to carry some emergency rations, such as chocolate bars, seeded raisins and malted milk tablets.

The Main East and West Highways

The main east and west highways in alphabetical order are:

The Bankhead Highway, from Washington, D. C., southwesterly to San Diego, Cal., a distance of 3,450 miles, and leading through Richmond, Raleigh, Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, Little Rock, Dallas, Fort Worth, El Paso, Douglas, Tucson, Phoenix to San Diego. The colors are yellow and white bands with letters B. H. on white band.

The Dixie Overland Highway, from Savannah to San Diego, a distance of 2,814 miles, and passing through Montgomery, Meridian, Shreveport, Dallas, Fort Worth, Roswell, El Paso, Douglas, Bisbee, Tucson, Phoenix to San Diego. Colors: Black letters D. O. H. on yellow and black sign.

George Washington National Highway, from Savannah northwesterly to Seattle, 3,943 miles, and going through Atlanta, Memphis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha, Sioux City, Sioux Falls, Deadwood, Butte, Spokane to Seattle. Colors: Red, blue and red bands with white letter W on wide blue band.

Lincoln Highway, from New York to San Francisco, 3,323 miles, through Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Canton, Lima, South Bend, Chicago Heights, Cedar Rapids, Omaha, Cheyenne, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, Oakland. Colors: Red, white and blue bands with letter L on the white.

National Old Trails Road, New York to Los Angeles, 3,281 miles, passing through Philadelphia, Hagerstown, Wheeling, Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, Pasadena. Colors: Red, white and blue bands.

National Parks Highway, from Chicago to Wenatchee National Park, 2,436 miles, passing through Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Fargo, Bismark, Dickinson, Billings, Butte, Missoula, Kalispell, Spokane. Colors: Red and white bands.

Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway, New York to San Francisco, 3,606 miles, through Newark, Reading, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Dayton, Indianapolis, Springfield, Chillicothe, St. Joseph, Colorado Springs, Salt Lake City, Ogden, Reno, Sacramento, Oakland. From New York to Pittsburgh known as the William Penn Highway. Colors: Red and white bands. The Pershing transport route.

Old Spanish Trail, Jacksonville to Los Angeles, 2,956 miles, reaching Tallahassee, New Orleans, Lake Charles, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, Douglas, Tucson, Phoenix, San Diego to Los Angeles. Colors: Red and yellow bands.

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