I was trying to get pictures of alkali dust roads throughout the western states like Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico but the following ones are the ones I found at Google images:
My father and his family when they were all children (there were 3 boys and two girls born from 1912 to about 1922 I think. Dad was born in 1916 in Morenci, Arizona while his father was an Electrical Contractor wiring up the miner's cabins who mined there then. (It is an open pit copper mining area).
So, the easiest way to travel was to travel light during the 1920s because roads were mostly dirt and if it rained you could be stuck there in your car for days until someone with something bigger like a tractor pulled you out of the muck. My father told me stories of driving from California and Oregon all the way to Breckenridge Texas and back as children. They died their dogs to the running boards because they had outdoor dogs then and so they were not house trained like most pets are today. Plus my Grandfather was a hunter of Deer and Elk and other things which was one of his hobbies then. In fact, at one point he owned 40 hunting dogs which my father complained about having to help feed them as a child along with his brothers and sister then. So, my father said they bought a house and land 2 1/2 acres in lake Forest Park around 1927 he said and they settled there. But, I think my grandfather and my Grandmother married sometime before 1912 when my oldest uncle was born. Then my Dad was born in Morenci, Arizona where they have an open pit Copper mine.
The Alkali dust could be anywhere from Southern Califronia Deserts to Arizona to New Mexico I think then. My father said that it made your eyes burn if you didn't have goggles to protect your eyes from it and it created sores inside your mouth from breathing it as you drove along in cars with no side windows usually then. So, the dogs are tied to the running boards so they don't go running off through the wilderness as you travel. Also, Dad said on the old dirt and rocked roads the fastest you could travel was about 25 miles per hour only under perfect conditions. Also, then they had wooden spoked wheels because metal wheels likely would have bent until there were paved roads a lot. But, sometimes the Wooden spoke wheels would break for one reason or another so they carried a spare wooden spoked wheel for replacing that wheel and brought a tire and tube and tire pump to replace the broken wheel too then in the 1920s traveling from California to Texas and Back. But, like I said by 1927 my Grandfather bought a house on
2 1/2 acres in Lake Forest park and they owned that likely until my grandparents passed on around 1970.
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