On September 22 1916 Mrs. Paul Riley of Shirley Illinois wrote to the Pantagraph of the family's trips to Blairsburg, Iowa to visit her sister. The make and model of the car they were using was not published, after all this was a letter from a lady who possibly had no interest in automobiles. She notes the routes they took in Iowa, such as the River to River Road, the Red Ball Route and the Hawkeye Highway.
Their starting time that day was 5 a.m. The first lap, as she put it, was to Wenona which they reached at 8 a.m. On current roads, the trip to Wenona from Shirley is just 44 miles, and might take over an hour to reach today. but such was not the case one hundred years ago. "The roads were in fine shape and the morning ideal."
They continued through Magnolia to reach Henry, where they encountered a very steep hill and the Illinois River. "From Putnam we took a short cut through Tiskilwa to reach Wyanet, finding the roads rougher, the hills higher and the scenery more beautiful." The Rileys' found the views so enchanting (and the road so rough) that Mrs. Riley and two of the children chose to walk some of the hills between Putnam and Tiskilwa and take snapshots. Mrs. Riley thought that Tiskilwa was one of the most charming towns that she had ever seen and forgot all about the rough roads in her pleasure of seeing the town.
"Going on west through Geneseo we struck some hills and sand following the Rock River before crossing it and going through Moline and Rock Island where we crossed the Mississippi River on the government bridge into Davenport." Travel included observation, and Mrs. Riley was an observer of the soil and crops as well as towns. It was 5:40 when they reached Davenport, and after 12 hours and more on the road, the Rileys had travelled just 172 miles, by their count. Of course part of that time was spent in walking and observing the scenery and towns and enjoying the sensation of being in a new place, possibly not that different from the place you had always known, but a novelty all the same.
The Rileys overnighted in the town of Tipton, which they had reached by misdirection. They had intended to stay on the "river to river route" which should have taken them to Iowa City.
"All thru the first day we saw cornfields with promises of good crops, some better some not so good as our own but all fairly good."
"In Cedar Rapids we saw the market wagons all drawn up in a row doing a rushing business. From one of them we bought two fine muskmelons at 10 cents each." The Rileys enjoyed those muskmelons on the road as they progressed over the Red Ball Route to Waterloo. Road on the Red Ball Route was very fine, but the country was poor "by the looks of the corn." Going west from Waterloo they took the Hawkeye Highway, which was under construction and very difficult to travel. They had to take several detours to avoid the worst of the road. Mrs Riley reported that "we found the people along the way glad to tell us the best road to take."
At Blairsburg the Rileys were greeted with a fine dinner and family. The next day Mrs. Riley "had the pleasure of helping my sister cook for threshers, but she only had fourteen men to feed, as it don't take so many to thresh from the stack." In Blairsburg there was a fine consolidated school for the younger children and a four year high school. "They have some apples, but they are not very nice ones, plenty of grapes, and such a fine lot of melons, both watermelons and muskmelons and how we did enjoy them."