From Camp Kearney (Johnson-11/4/1917)

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November 4, 1917.

Dear Ones at Home:

I will write you to let you know we got through all right. Brother and I are both well. It was a long trip. We left Camp Funston, Kas., Friday morning and got here Tuesday morning. Went by way of Denver, then north to Cheyenne, then to Ogden, past Salt Lake City. We saw lots of scenery when we came through the mountains, we could see great high hills, and rocks as large as a house hanging from their sides. We could see trains high above us and down below us; it was mountains and desert all the way from Cheyenne except around Salt Lake City, that was a fine looking country for some distance, but we came over hundreds of miles of desert as bare as a floor, not a sign of vegetation until we reached California. It is hot about noon but gets damp and cool at night.

We are only about eight or nine miles from the coast. We came along the coast for a number of miles. It was quite a sight to see the big waves coming in, ten or fifteen feet high, when they got to the land they would break and fly to pieces.

They tried to cheer us up at Denver and Salt Lake by telling us they didn’t think we would ever see France; the Red Cross came through the train and treated us to apples and candy.

I will close for this time. Let me hear from home soon.

Ervin Johnson