this was a very enjoyable read and I recommend it. I wasn't sure in the beginning when as explanation for the book, the writer wrote: "One dismal rain-soaked day in March, 1930, I set out from California with a party of engineers in a cavalcade of automobiles." But he does an excellent and colorful job of describing everything he sees and everyone he meets, weaving in some history that fills out the picture he paints without just a dry history lesson as so many do.