We stayed in New York for a couple of days—long enough for Mummy to shop at Bloomingdale’s and declare everything a sad imitation of last year’s Paris, to go to a show and Mummy to declare it lacking the polish of the West End—and then we boarded the Lake Shore Limited, bound for Chicago and eventually the Wild West.

The first part of the trip was delightful as we followed the Hudson River up its valley. We dined on rather a lot of unmemorable food, fell asleep to the rhythmic rocking of the train and awoke in Chicago. We had to endure rather tedious hours in the ladies’ waiting room in the station before we could board the California Zephyr and off we went again. The next section was flat and uninteresting until we crossed the Mississippi River, had dinner, and darkness fell across a huge expanse of sky. I’d never seen a world in which there was just land, unclaimed, unused land, as far as the eye could see. And the sunset—we never had sunsets like that at home—as if the sky were twice as large as in England and had been painted with a giant paintbrush in primary colors. It was magical. I decided I was going to like it here. We were served breakfast in Denver and then a day of mountains and emptiness. Once we spotted a lone horseman, but I think he was the only person we saw for hours. We fell asleep in the middle of nowhere and awoke to find the train had stopped in Reno. Then we had to summon the maids, gather up the bags and make a rather hurried departure. We watched the train pull out, leaving us on an empty platform in the middle of nowhere.

“Where do you think the main part of the town is?” Mummy asked, looking around.

“I think this is it,” I replied, examining the straggle of clapboard shacks, a few low brick buildings and the feeling of a true Wild West town in the middle of empty brown scrub. It was extremely hot and dusty and a mirage hung over the track. We left the maids and the luggage and set off in a taxicab to the office of a lawyer Cy had found for my mother. Electric signs flashed from unlikely cottages, advertising speedy marriage and divorce—sometimes both at the same place. We turned into what must be the high street as it had a big sign across it advertising Reno as “The Biggest Little City in the World.”

“If this is a city, then I’m Charley’s Aunt,” my mother said. “I’ve never seen a drearier place, have you? Thank God I don’t have to really stay here for six weeks. I’d go mad.”