THE FIRST AUTOMOBILES

 


Fellows posing in an early version of the automobile.

The 1900 Victor automobile

The Robinson Gasoline Carriage.

The Winton two-seated surrey.

A three-seater version of the yet-to-come station wagon?

Friends out for a drive in their 1902 automobile

My husband’s Graandmother, Lillian Ross Pringle Brasier, driving the family car in the early 1900s.


Forerunner of the double-decker bus?

Exploring the Grand Canyon in an early vehicle.

Some drivers liked to chance death!.


The first car allowed into Yosemite National Park was a steam-powered Locomobile driven by Oliver Lippincott in 1900 by way of the Wawona Road.  Cars, however, were not formally permitted in the Park until 1913 when Park Ranger, Forest Townsley, issued the first automobile permit.  Oliver is seen here in his car perched precariously on Overhanging Rock at Glacier Point.  I'm guessing that's his wife standing in the background, keeping free of the vehicle which might have plunged 3000 feet to the Valley floor below.  No one knows, for certain, how much weight that rock can actually hold.  Big chunks of rock do occasionally break loose from up there and fall into the Valley.  Overhanging Rock has been off-limits for many years, but fools still try their luck.




Others decided simply tooling around Yosemite Valley was adventure enough.  That rock rising 3000 feet above the Valley floor in the background is called El Capitan. 

Driving through one of the 3 groves of giant sequoias in the Park – Tuolumne, Merced, and Mariposa.  These folks are exploring the Mariposa Grove.

There are tunnel trees in both the Tuolumne and Mariposa Groves.  This dated vehicle is coming through the tunnel tree in the Tuolumne Grove.  I drove through this tunnel tree several years ago. One can no longer drive through any of the groves anymore, however.  Hikers only.  Too bad – especially in the Tuolumne Grove.  The drive from the top down through the giant trees is beautiful.  I did it a couple of times before the road was closed to vehicle traffic. As I recall, it’s about a 3 mile trip.

Below is one last photo of an old car that I didn’t want to leave out.  Do you think the designer went a little overboard?  Perhaps he was just looking for a little snazz?


The Octo-Auto.  There was also a Sexto-Auto.  Can you picture yourself bopping around town in this baby?

:->

La Nightingail

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE SPORTS ARENA

Image
  My husband’s maternal grandfather, Harry Brasier’s hockey team in 1898-99.  Harry is on the left end of the 2 nd of 4 loosely formed rows. Later Harry played for a larger team.  Here he is on the right end of the 2 nd row wearing a black sleeveless tee & holding a hockey stick threatening the poor guy seated on the ground to his left.  1981 – Our son, the goalie, and his soccer team in Oakhurst, California. 1981 – eldest daughter and her soccer team. Eldest daughter in action on the soccer field during her first year playing the game! 1981 – youngest daughter and her soccer team. It was interesting to watch all the parents splitting up and running around trying, like us, to watch all our children playing on different teams on Saturday mornings in different areas of the local high school fields.  And then the high school JV football team would come out to play a game on the football field and heads would swing around yet again.  Fun times. In 1983 ...
Read more

TENTING IN TENTS ON THE OL' CAMPGROUND

Image
  My husband’s grandfather, Harry Brasier, before he was married so sometime before 1909, went canoeing across five Canadian lakes with several friends.  These are two of those friends sitting in front of their tent somewhere on the shore of one of those Canadian lakes. My Dad and his younger sister in front of the family tent at Meeks Bay, Lake Tahoe in the early 1920s. My Dad in the early 1930s with his one man wonder tent. 1945 – My Mom stands in front of the inherited Bradley family tent during a short camping get-away with my Dad on a break from dealing with three little children 5 years old and younger. (Mom’s sis-in-law, my Aunt Shirley, was taking care of us back home.)  And oh my gosh – Mom’s wearing a dress!  Camping!!  Mom!!!  What were you thinking?    Two years later in 1947 with the old Bradley tent and our 1942 Pontiac sedan.  This time we kids came along.  That’s me standing by the car.  I was 7, my brother, 4, and m...
Read more

A PICNIC IS A PICNIC WHEREVER YOU HAPPEN TO BE – SAND, DIRT, GRASS, ROCKS, PATIOS, DECKS, A LIVING ROOM FLOOR, OR AN OLD HELICOPTER PAD

Image
  Summer, 1962.  Picnic IN the sand.  You’ve seen this picture before.  We were at Stinson Beach and the wind was blowing pretty hard, but we hunkered down behind the sand dunes and on this particular trip, managed to eat our lunch without crunching on too much sand.  And yes, there was the time we went to Stinson and gave up picnicking there because it was just too windy, coming home to eat our lunch on a blanket spread out on the living room floor in front of a cheery fire Dad built in the fireplace.  But hey, it was still a picnic! J Stinson Beach.  It’s always windy here because it’s so wide open.  But it’s a great place to explore. My husband’s mother looks like she’s eating something yummy out of a box in front of her?  I’m guessing she was around 15 at the time which would place the year around 1925.  Her mother, Lillian Ross (Pringle) Brasier, is seated on the right.   Mid 1940s.  My maternal grandmother, Bertha ...
Read more