[Rarebooks] FS: Woman's handwritten travel diary

[Bob Petrilla]

Blodgett, Nina. WOMAN’S TRAVEL DIARY OF THREE TRIPS: ALASKA & THE
NORTHWEST; CARIBBEAN; CALIFORNIA & MEXICO, 1968-1974.

 Diary of the Travels of Nina Blodgett of Owego, New York & Edgewater,
Florida. Original manuscript. 57pp of handwritten entries + 32pp of printed
matter + 1.5pp of names & addresses of folks she met along the way. Bound
in a burgundy leatherette diary with “Travels” and compass design on cover,
small pencil in holder at fore-edge.  Very Good. Leatherette.
Our diarist takes highly-scheduled tours, traveling by bus, train, and
ship, usually accompanied by tour guides every step of the way. Nina is not
much given to flowery descriptions, although the two later tours (Caribbean
and California & Mexico) do include detail sights she has seen and her
comments on the various cities. ~~ Trip #1: Alaska: Grange tour, July 2-20,
1968. Nina takes the bus from Binghamton to Syracuse, where she meets
fellow travelers and the tour guide, all of whom are taking the train,
where she shares a sleeping compartment with Celia. They change trains
twice, arrive at Winnipeg on July 4, and take a morning bus tour of the
city and a boat ride, before entraining for Jasper. There they tour
Whistler Mountain, bus to the Columbia ice fields, snowmobile on the
glacier, then rejoin the train to Banff. There on July 7, they pose for a
group picture, tour the town, and go on to Lake Louise where they encounter
“several tour groups”. On July 8, bus to Peyton Mountain Trail and
Athabasca Falls, then board the Canadian National train returning to
Jasper. On July 9, Nina & Celia bus to Vancouver, see a few sights, then
take the ferry to Victoria. They spend the next day there shopping and
touring by bus, then ferry back to Vancouver and board the “Princess
Patricia” for a cruise to Alaska. After a day at sea, they dock at Prince
Rupert, take a bus tour of the city, and visit a fish cannery. The next
day, they sail for Ketchikan (Alaska), tour of town, and sail to Juneau
where they tour Mendenhall Glacier and Auk Bay, and go shopping. (“Daylight
until nearly 11 p.m.”) They sail next to Skagway, where they take a train
trip to Lake Bennett and Carcross, then back to Skagway, where Nina sees
people “catch a 165 lb. halibut from the deck of ship.” On July 15, they
sail to Wrangell, then to Kitamat, where they’re met by a bus, tour the
city, shop, and hear a lecture on “aluminum production”. Next, they sail to
Alert Bay (a village in British Columbia) and are “taken to Indian Village
and their Long House to watch Indian dances.” Sailing back to Vancouver,
they take a bus tour of the city, then entrain for Seattle. July 19 offers
a bus tour to Mount Rainier, a tour of Seattle by bus the next day, then
back on the Great Northern Railway for home, arriving after several stops
at Syracuse on July 22, from where she takes the bus home to Binghamton the
following day. ~~ Trip #2: Caribbean Grange Tour, February 1-17, 1974.
Departing from New Smyrna Beach, Florida, Nina takes the bus to Fort
Lauderdale, where she meets Mildred, and they stay at the "Seasons of
Lauderdale Hotel,” meeting “the rest of group at dinner” there. They board
the “Stella Solaris” the next day and are at sea from February 2nd to 5th,
during which time she takes a “Greek lesson," and they arrive at San Juan,
Puerto Rico. In quick succession, they also visit St. Thomas, Martinique,
Barbados, Tobago, Trinidad, La Guaira-Caracas (Venezuela), Curacao, and
Haiti, before arriving back at Port Everglades on February 16, and driving
home with “Olive and Paul and Ethel” the next day. The descriptions of
sights visited on bus tours are somewhat fuller here than on the previous
Alaska trip, and Nina seems particularly struck by “women working with men
[on construction work] along highway” (Barbados), “women washing clothes in
river” (Martinique), and “women carrying loads on heads” (Haiti). She also
notes that “some government houses rent for $15 per month for 10 years and
then belong to renters” in Curacao, and that “many high rise buildings” are
going up in San Juan. ~~ Trip #3: Mexico (+ California, etc.), November
13-30, 1974. Nina and Mildred fly from Tampa to Chicago, where they tour
the city. They entrain at Union Station for the West, admiring the sights
in the Dome Car, and arriving at Sacramento on November 17, where they
board a bus and “pick up Convention members” for a trip to Yosemite. The
next day, they take bus tours of the Valley of Yosemite and the Big Trees.
On November 19, bus to San Francisco, where they enjoy a bus tour, ride a
cable car, etc. They next catch a train to Los Angeles on November 21, and
from there fly to “Alcopulco” [Acapulco]. After a day there, she and
Mildred and her group take a bus to Taxco, with their guide Ramon Cortez,
who serves in that capacity “for all of Mexico tour.” After a short tour of
Cuernavaca, they travel to Mexico City, where they spend several days
touring and shopping, even taking in a ballet one night. On November 29,
Nina and Mildred fly back to Tampa, and the next day she drives home to
Edgewater. ~~ Later, among the blank leaves, we find 1.5 pages of names and
addresses, many of folks from New York state.   (#038319)     $125.00

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