"Sacramento
Bee" building which has two interesting bas reliefs of printers of the
Middle Ages working a hand press. Sacramento is very hot in summer, its
stone pavements and asphalt streets radiating heat like an open oven.

[Illustration: 1. Philips Hotel on Lincoln Highway near Lake Tahoe. 2.
View on Lake Tahoe. 3. Looking up Yosemite Valley. 4. Upper Yosemite
Falls.]

Leaving Sacramento, we drove across rolling plains, mostly grain fields,
to Folsom. From Folsom to the busy little town of Placerville we had
more broken country and a decidedly bumpy road. We found the drive from
Folsom to Placerville uninteresting, the forest being scrubby, the road
dry and dusty. As soon as we left Placerville we came into beautiful
country. We had stretches of distant mountain views and magnificent
wooded hills all about us. A mountain stream, the American River, green
and foaming, roared alongside the road. The road was in excellent
condition and ran on through the forest for miles, flanked by sugar
pines, cedars, firs, balsams, and yellow pines. Squirrels darted back
and forth in front of us. The wild white lilac was blooming at the
roadside. Ascending hour by hour, we passed several pleasant-looking
mountain inns and came at last to Phillips', a simple place where they
gave us, outside the main house, a tiny cottage all to ourselves. It had
one room and from its door we looked straight away into the forest. They
gave us some beefsteak, some fried potatoes, some canned corn, carrots,
cake, custard, and tea for our supper.

We left our door open at night, that the fresh mountain air might come
in freely. I awoke early in the morning and saw the first lights on the
hills. Away off in the forest I heard a hermit thrush calling. After
breakfast we drove along through pine forest, the snow on the hills not
very far away, and soon came to the summit of the Pass, 7395 feet. A
party in a Reo car had been over the Pass three weeks earlier, toiling
through the snow, and had posted several signs, painted in flamboyant
red: "First car up May 25, 1914." Below us was the marshy valley
surrounding the southern end of Lake Tahoe. We saw the exquisite green
of these watery meadows and the lovely clumps of pines growing here and
there in the valley. Beyond stretched the great lake surrounded by lofty
mountains--a glorious view. We drove carefully down the steep hill on to
the plain and past Meyers. The road was very sandy, and as we drove
among