I took the streetcar. I got on and was confronted with a huge machine that I was expected to pay for my trip. Some kindly person tried to help me, but in a couple of minutes I gave up in frustration, not really knowing how to get where I was going and totally unable to read the mile long words I was confronted with. After a few stops I got off the train.

Unfortunately, I did not have anything identifying my hotel, and for some reason I could not backtrack due to the number of converging tracks. I am not sure how I found my way, but it sure would have been a better trip if someone had told me what to do before hand.

At this juncture I really don’t know what my parents were thinking in letting me go without any preparation. It was an adventure of sorts, but afforded little opportunity to see my objective “with every faculty on the alert,” or otherwise.

I find myself pulled in the direction of reading this article not just as advice for a young woman taking the train for the first time out of her Utah home, but also for a person heading into the 20th century.

What common sense of the turn of the 19th century to the 20th could have prepared anyone for the last hundred years?

I wonder how the writer of the article would have responded to a vision of the cultural and historical events of the 20th century. As a train wreck? And what railroad functionary (marked either by Or brass buttons) could have given useful advice?

Undoubtedly “an unlimited amount of patience and civility” would continue to come in handy, along with “an air of composure and reserve,” however one felt “signs of nervousness or fear, or even the helplessness….”

Sartre might have been intrigued by suggested remedies for nausea (“ginger root” and “crackers or fruit” do not work for me). When faced with life’s little problems, it is often difficult not to “jump up.” I do indeed find it difficult to “sit absolutely still and cling to the handles of [my] seat.” Who knows – things might work out better if I could remember to do so.

The advice “to pray with all your might” and to hand out articles of faith cards to dispel erroneous ideas seems like the best advice in the article. And to hold in mind that we are “traveling to see something,” and should therefore “see it, with every faculty on the alert.”

After all, we are told that a full report will be required.

I look forward to the boat travel part, too.

Hard boiled eggs, probably still in their shells, jolted from a dainty basket by the rude force of a collision, no doubt would be even more dangerous.

Next time I undertake a long train journey (generally undertaken without fear of dying, despite the fact I neglect to ask for blessings beforehand) and am mocked by the offspring for the amount of luggage I am carrying, I shall point them towards this post!

I’m really enjoying this series. Thanks, Ardis!

It isn’t a part of this series (unless I’ve forgotten), but another piece of advice I read somewhere in the young women’s materials recently was that some travelers made temple garments out of cheesecloth because that could be washed in a hotel basin and dried overnight.

Oh, if the antis who mock Mormon underwear only knew how complex the topic really could be …