Thursday, May 28, 2015

Prepared to Go it Alone


Although Anita was prepared to go it alone on her travels, cooking her own meals and camping out on the desert as well as changing tires and repairing her car as needed, she remained unfazed, declaring with confidence: "Why can't women break transcontinental records as well as men? I am out to snatch a few honors as well as to show the men folk the sturdiness of what they call the weaker species when it comes to grit and perseverance. I'll show them, too."

Throughout her journey - Anita made 100 stops at Paramount Movie Theaters along the way and spoke about filmmaking. She was able to drive 100 miles a day - when she hit Nevada - The New York times quoted Aunt Anita in the September 19th paper:

"Leaving Reno on what is known as the Lovelock Road, which is impassable in wet weather, ten miles from Lincoln Highway, I got stuck in the mud. There had been a big cloudburst, but I did not know it, and I worked from 9 o'clock in the morning until 8 o'clock that night shoveling mud.

I got the car out, drove fifty feet, and was stuck again.

It was impossible for me to go on, and I had no food with me as I expected to make Fallon in four hours. I was exhausted so I got blankets out to lie down.

About midnight a mad coyote attacked me, and after a terrible struggle I finally killed him, and knew nothing more until I was picked up by prospectors, who heard the shots of my gun. This was 3:30 A.M., so I must have fought with the coyote for three hours.

The prospectors took me eighteen miles to a station house and gave me food. When I fully recovered I went back and got my car and followed the prospectors to Lovelock. Then I continued on my journey.


The roads were terrible, so hot and dusty, that it took me nine hours to drive 80 and a half miles to Winnemucca."




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