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“Too late to go across the river at night.” There wasn't anyplace to stay on the other side, and his wife was on the Bonn side, if I have my geography correct, and Ruth said to him--said to me--”Offer him some butter.”

We took a lot of things with us, because money didn't make any difference. If you had chocolate and you had butter and cheese, you could get almost anything you wanted. So, “Offer him some--” We had some pound bars of butter. “Offer him a pound of butter, and ask him if he could manage to come across.” Well, he had to negotiate with his wife, because she had to pull from the other side, and she was saying, “Nein, nein, nein.” He talked about the butter and she said, “Come on, come on.” She could improvise under almost any circumstance.

We had a lot of fun on that trip, as we did on almost every trip. We did all the Western parks one year, in the month of--We left on Decoration--What's the last day in May? Is that Decoration Day [Memorial Day]?

I'm not sure.

Anyway, I think it's the thirtieth of May. She had talked to her older brother and his wife about the beauty of the Western states and how ignorant they were of what was out there. They were too timid to venture out on their own, so she said, “Meet us in San Francisco and we'll do as many of the national parks as we can do in a month's time.” She had planned, exactly, the route structure (I think I've still got her notes) of places to stay, the mileages and things to see. I arranged to have a car delivered to us in San Francisco. Her brother drove from Ohio to San Francisco, was very much afraid that we wouldn't get there