July 6,1948

I am now in Los Angeles, my journey's end. I would like to write about the journey. After I left Pittsburgh, I went to Detroit and picked up my new car, a Kaiser-Frazer. It is a very large car and I have ample room for all my luggage. The car has a built-in radio. Detroit is full of traffic but has a a very beautiful and extremely well laid out center. I t also has wide boulevards like the Ringstrasse. There are apartment buildings 30 floors high and good shops.

After Detroit, I went to Ann Arbor and visited cousin Martin where he lives in a fraternity. Ann Arbor is a pretty place, one of the colleges is built in Oxford college style. Everywhere is green space and squares. After that I passed Gary, the biggest steel plant in the world, where more steel is made than in the whole of France and almost as much as in England. I passed a huge oil refinery which seemed like a city on its own. I then made it to Chicago. There is a big highway, with eight lanes for cars that goes all along Lake Michigan for miles and miles. All of the lanes in each direction are crammed with cars which was an amazing sight. People were swimming in the lake, sailing, and rowing. Downtown there are the most beautiful stores with much better taste and hundred times more goods than at Harrods. The Wrigley chewing gum people have a huge skyscraper that is floorlit, just like the Viennese Rathaus on May 1st. The central park has fountains in all colors, 60 feet high- everything is so rich, big, and yet still often tasteful.
     After Chicago, I drove through Illinois and Missouri and then on to Kansas City. The country side is hilly, green, and hot, but is also pleasant with some rivers. There are good streets but no superhighways. and the small towns have lots of stop signs. There are much fewer cars on the roads and there are big farms, mostly corn. I never knew that one uses so much corn, not only for hogs, but here humans consume it in corn flakes, popcorn, etc. Kansas City is one of the biggest cattle and grain centers, a hot, sunny , modern wealthy town.  After leaving Kansas City, I drove on through Kansas. For hundreds of miles one drives through wheat and corn fields. The wheat was ripe and yellow and beautiful. But there are no "wogende weizenfelder" in this country. The wheat is much shorter and a different resistant type. There are golden lakes. The big harvesting machines were busy all along the way. They cut about four or five inches off the stalk, including the ear, thresh it, cut the straw to little pieces which is strewn over the stubble field, and then the harvest is over. It is all very impressive, but it sure lacks the romanticism of our harvests. No women or children are seen as helpers, just two or perhaps three men on the machines, which proceed at ten or twelve miles an hour.
     The further I drove, the fewer people could be seen. There are many miles between villages, no cow or horses, just a car every five miles or so. Nothing for miles on end but wheat fields. The country is not absolutely flat, but permanent waves, ups, and downs. Slowly, then without noticing it you go higher and higher on a very straight road. Finally I arrived in Denver. The capitol is a beautiful building with a golden roof and has a flight of steps leading into the building. On one of the steps you find engraved: one mile above sea level. From Denver one can see the high mountains. Although the place itself lies rather high, it is not mountainous yet. The next day I drove right into very high mountains- up to 12,000 feet high. At Loveland Pass (learn more about the Loveland Pass ) I crossed the Continental Divide. To the left water flows into the Atlantic, to the right into the pacific Ocean. I walked a little but found it rather strenuous and so did the car. The vegetation is poor, not comparable to the Swiss mountains or Dolomites. Going down I came through Glenwood Springs, with the largest open air swimming pool. ( read more about the Glenwood Pool ) One one side it has a hot spring and the other end a cold shower, so you can swim in whatever temperature you choose. The Next day I entered Utah, the Mormon state. Beautiful mountains and real green meadows greeted me for the first time near Glenwood Springs. I drove down stream to Grand Junction, still four or five thousand feet high. Now began the worst part of the trip. It was very hot and I came into the desert. I think the temperature was near 120 and the water in the car got to boiling. I had to stop and wait 'til the car cooled down a little. The desert was unpleasant and I had no idea that it was so long and extended. Strange hills and mountains in blue and yellow stretch all through this part of the country. I was very glad when it was all over and I reached a town. I stopped at a snack bar in the mountains of Utah. Very friendly people asked me whether I would like to hunt for lions. While they insisted they were lions, when I saw the photos, my impression is that they were pumas. Very near the lion place I entered Zion National Park. The national parks are areas where everything has to be left untouched- no hunting, fishing, etc. The lions can breed undisturbed in the park and can be shot only when they leave the park. Zion leads into the Virgin Canyon. Fantastic mountains of sandstone, shapes comparable to the Dolomites, deep red and blue and brilliant white from the base for this Canyon. The mountains are bare, nothing grows. But the soft stone gave the rivers opportunities to cut fantastic shapes into the stone. All the mountains have very Biblical names. A tunnel more than 1 1/2  miles is cut through one of the mountains and you have to use this road when coming down. I was glad to find a small swimming pool at the bottom of the canyon and enjoyed all this very much.
     I then drove on until Las Vegas, the Monte Carlo of the USA. At the end of a long desert stretch, hot and void of all living beings, one comes to the gayest and brightest town one can imagine. The streets are lit as is Broadway in New York. The hotels and shops are exquisite and gambling is everywhere. People lose money in large quantities, not only with roulette but with little automats where you throw money in, turn a crank and sometimes figures show up and you win, but mostly you lose. In Roulette, they have invented the double zero here, to give the house a greater chance, in addition to the single zero well known in European casinos. Every hotel room is air conditioned. Out side it may be 100 degrees but your room is cool.
      The next morning was my final stretch of the journey. There were three hours of bare desert, gilded by mountain ranges and then down into San Bernadino. Orange groves are everywhere, green country, flowers and beautiful colors. Three more hours and I finally made it to my sister's house in a suburb of Los Angeles. Los Angeles really is a town of miracles. The climate is lovely, very cool at night, but rather hot during the day. Here you pick your oranges and grapefruit from the tree for breakfast. There are oil wells right in the center of town and a little tar lake. There are beautiful mansions that belong to the movie stars. Taxis have radios to communicate with and be directed to and from headquarters. One can swim in the blue Pacific, almost as blue as the Mediteranean.  Greater Los Angeles is a fairly large industrial center now. Mainly aircraft and consumer goods industries, but also a fair amount of foundries and other heavy industry are located here now. Only two or three of a hundred inhabitants were born here, most of them come from the midwest. Four million have migrated to California since 1940. It is a strange part of the world, where you need not be surprised when quite large bungalows and even houses are moved through the streets at night. When you go through the streets at night, you see huge trucks with houses on them. They drive through town at 6 mph. I could imagine that someone could come home from a vacation and find that their house has been stolen! The mail is delivered by helicopter to the outlying suburban post offices from the main office.
     I have visited San Francisco and will look into work there. The Highway between San Francisco and L.A.  is an old Mission path and runs along the Pacific. It was one of the most beautiful trips. Once I went to Lake Tahoe in the High Sierra, the mountain tops were full of snow, the lake blue and very much like Alpen lakes. I then went to Reno, which is a crazy little town, quite pleasant for one night. From there I went to Virginia City which is one of the ghost towns where everything reminds you of  old glory and wealth of the silver days and the colored past of the wild west. We had a drink in the "Bucket of Blood Inn".
     Europe seems now very remote. All the information I get comes second or third hand. Even here one is not very optimistic. I wonder whether I will have to unpack my uniform again. I am glad I made the the right decision to leave as friends who returned to Czechoslovakia are desperately trying to get out again. My friend writes to tell me that "Prague is celebrating the great victory over capitalists and reactionaries. Flags are flying everywhere. My brother's fate and the fate of the rest of my family is uncertain. Such is the personal security in the "People's Paradise"."