This is an account of a journey undertaken by my great-grandparents, Fred and Emily Strowbridge, and their good friends, Mr. & Mrs. Dittmeyer, which began October 9, 1924, in Rome, NY, and culminated in Port Arthur, Texas. Grandfather Strowbridge celebrated his 66th birthday that month, so they were not a young couple setting off with youth on their side. On October 10 they arrived in Washington, D.C., where they visited the Washington Monument, the Library of Congress, and the Capitol Building. They headed south, traversing "rough and sandy" roads and witnessing the construction of a road in Florida built by convicts. They arrived in Port Arthur on October 26 when Emily commented that had had no rain on their trip; "We had one puncture, but we changed tires four times." In Port Arthur they stayed with their son, Fred, Jr. Several times they went to a beach, including once when the women relaxed and the men went hunting for geese. "One measured 4-1/2 feet from tip to tip of wings." They visited an oil field in Liberty where "there was 50 or more teams of oxen there besides mules & horses carting lumber, iron pipes, pumps & drills to the field." They drove through "millions of acres of pine forest that had been cut over" and saw both active and deserted saw mills.

They started their return trip on April 13, 1925. Every night they pitched their tent, usually in camping sites. On April 14, 1925, they traveled 131 miles. They bought and ate lots of strawberries, with prices varying from 20 to 55 cents a quart. In Vicksburg they paid 25 cents for camping; there was a zoo nearby where "the lions [were] making an awful noise."

They arrived home in Rome on April 30. Grandmother Strowbridge wrote: "We traveled 2,100 miles coming home and 2,145 miles going down. It cost $32.58 for gas going down & $37.45 coming back. All expences for round trip was 75 dollars a couple." I inherited photos from their trip, which make Grandma's journals come alive.