Travel Letters: Hawaii, 1933

[Printed] MATSON LINE

SAN FRANCISCO

LOS ANGELES

HAWAII

San Francisco.

Friday, Oct 27, 1933

Dearest Mother,

I'm on board at last and all excited. It is without a doubt the nicest boat I have ever seen, built in Quincy, Mass in 1932 and most attractive in every way. I met a very nice gal on deck. For she and I seemed to be the only people aboard and we've been strolling round together, She came from Honolulu (Her father being in the Navy) and is going to Los Angeles.

{Top centre: "2"} such a funny time as we had yesterday (The we must stand for the bags and I) after writing you we went through dessert country all day and it got pretty hot. I changed at Barstow and had ten minutes to order and eat a three course dinner which was delicious, but the soup so hot I had to resort to watering it. then we got onto a funny little train (with no diner) that goes to San Francisco. From there on it was hot (92º) and dusty, but not dirty at all. In the afternoon we came to a new hilly section and the funny little trainman

{Top centre: "3"} came in and asked if I was the lady who wanted to see "The [?]oors I wasn't but several of us decided we'd like to see them anyway. so followed him to the rear of the car, where there was no real platform but just the vestibule. There were six of us out there. One a stout lady, and the little conductor got all excited showing us things. We none of us knew what it was all about but we gathered that a year ago there had been a wreck from a cloud burst which made a wall of water 80 feet high

{Top centre: "4"} and this came down the canyon carrying away steel bridges, part of a freight train and killing a woman and [,] her granddaughter by blocking up a tunnel, and thats about all the [senee?} we could mke of it though he talked constantly. He kept hopping about from one side of the platform to the other saying "Pardon me ladies" and off he would go inside the car to appear in two minutes and hop back and forth again, waving flags out one side then another, and in between pointing out things we shouldn't miss. The

{Top centre: "5"} train wound down the valley from side to side and in one place looped around a hill going under itself if it were 82 cars long. There were 18 tunnels we went through which weren't wso bad wntil after a frieght train passed us one the way up, and you could feel the heat it had caused in the tunnel going through. We got dirtier and dirtier but it was cooler out there and great fun as we were joggled? about like dice in a shaker.