At some point during the post-war years in Los Angeles, Tedi and Jimmy began to have problems securing a reliable source of raw materials for their business (Kim's of California) and, in a fit of misguided hope, signed a contract with a gentleman by the name of Joe Pizer along with his wife, "Barney."
This apparently was a big mistake as, despite the rosy looking sketches Tedi made of the two of them collaborating delightedly with Joe and Barney, things quickly went sour. Tedi felt that they had been promised a ready supply of materials, but that the Pizers actually simply wanted to absorb the Kim's of California business and allow it to die a slow death. The Pizers had a rather substantial operation, and it would hardly seem to have been worth their time to go to such trouble, but that's all history now. For us the big change was that we no longer walked a block from the Pan American Building to the Red Line terminal to catch the trolley out to Glendale, but instead had to navigate half a dozen blocks of a very run-down area along Main Street from Olympic Boulevard to the terminal. There were a number of very seedy looking people hanging around on the streets, including a rather overweight woman with a very substantial mustache who always seemed to be leaning out the window of her second-floor apartment smoking a cigaette as we walked by. The Pizer operation itself was located in a clean modern building and seemed quite professional. In particular, one of the older cutting operators was quite friendly and showed us how he could cut a foot-thick pile of material with a super-sharp electrically powered knife-like apparatus, arranged something like a bandsaw. He also showed us a missing finger which had at some point in time been severed during a lapse in attention while working the knife. Major bleeding ouchie ...
It must have been a period of tremendous frustration for Tedi and Jimmy to watch all of their hard work go down the drain, but at some point it became apparent that the business was simply not going to survive. The slide was a long down-hill one which took place over a period of about a year (from mid-1947 to the Spring of 1948). Once things had closed down and the sewing machines and equipment auctioned off, the question then was what to do. Tedi and Jimmy made the decision to quit the Los Angeles area to try and leave the bad memories behind, and they began looking around for potential opportunities in nearby areas. One weekend we drove up to the Tarzana area north of LA to investigate some rumored opportunity there. Another weeked we took a circuitous route through Palm Springs down to San Diego to look around and talk to some people there, but before we even got to Palm Springs it was so hot we were already looking for a swimming pool to cool off in. There were no public pools in Palm Springs, so Tedi had Jimmy drive from one little motel-type place to the next until she found one that would let us pay to swim -- something like an outrageous 25 cents each (public pools were usually under 10 cents each!). Most of the suggestions came from friends of Tedi's in the fashion industry, but the fact of the matter was probably that their skill set simply was not in demand (especially with the onus of a freshly failed business hanging over them!). In the end they simply decided it was time to leave the Southern California area and try to make a completely new start somewhere else -- a bold move!
We're not actually sure where the idea came to set out cross-country looking for an opportunity, but at some point things did, in fact, come down to just that. Our 1937 Chevy was an aging 10-year-old machine which had been built before the war, and setting out in an older vehicle such as that definitely had its risks. Nevertheless, after accumulating enough gear to make it possible to be more or less self-contained for a period of several weeks, Jimmy lashed sleeping bags, tarps, a tent, clothes, water coolers, food containers, tools, and other miscellaneous odds and ends both on top and on the back of the car, and off we set one spring morning (afternoon, actually, by the time everything was packed!). Driving across the Mojave Desert was a water-bags-on-the-radiator feat in itself, which required driving in the early mornings and evenings to avoid the heat. And, of course, we couldn't leave before school was out, which meant waiting until almost June to hit the road!
We headed out of Los Angeles in the direction of Las Vegas and, after a day or two of driving (at 40 mph, of course), ended up at Boulder City where the big attraction was Boulder Dam. We camped along the shore of Lake Mead and swam in the lake, enjoying it greatly, although Jimmy and Tedi could quickly tell that it was not an area which would be hungering for their skill set! We then headed south, aimed toward Phoenix, but the weather was continually hot, letting up only in the evening. Somewhere along the road, about halfway to Phoenix, the car overheated and we were forced to spend a long afternoon hunkered down in the coolness of a fly-infested culvert waiting for evening to come and for the car to cool off enough so we could limp on to the nearest town of Wickenburg (ever since that long hot afternoon, the name Wickenburg has sounded like a sort of Nirvana off in the distance!). We had the radiator drained and refilled, which fortunately seemed to fix the problem (more expensive options would almost certainly have been out of reach of the family pocketbook!). While camping along the roadside that night a meeting of the minds apparently occurred, and it was decided that we would set off the next day in a more northerly (i.e, cooler) direction. 
The next day we drove into the little town of Prescott, Arizona where we found a marvelous outdoor swimming area in the form of a small lake called "Granite Dells Bathing Lake" right outside town (including a rope swing and what seemed like a jillion cicadas in the trees all around the lake!) -- apparently now long closed (sigh)! Prescott had a definite appeal, but again didn't appear to offer much in the way of job opportunities for either Jimmy or Tedi. From Prescott we wandered about a bit, visiting Tuzigoot National Monument (our first-ever pueblo-style ruin -- it seemed very hot and dry!) and Montezuma Castle National Monument (back then they still had ladder access to the pueblo itself up in the cliff!), after which we drove to Sedona, then up Oak Creek Canyon (a small river/stream carved into the red-faced rock and lined with oak trees -- a completely unexpected oasis in the desert) to Flagstaff. Serious consideration was given to Flagstaff as a possibility, although again job opportunities were a significant issue. After a certain amount of head-scratching (and a night spent in an actual motel!), they finally decided to press on eastwards to check out Albuquerque and Santa Fe. The whole trip was done in the spirit of something like a "quest" with a very hazy set of goals in mind -- the only really well-defined ones being job opportunities!
From Flagstaff we soldiered on, headed for Winslow, although The Eagles' song "Take it Easy" that included the lyric "standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona" wasn't written until 1972, and so we missed the later (and considerable) attraction of having passed through the Winslow of storied fame! The next stop along the road was Gallup, which, despite the seasonal draw of the Gallup Ceremonial, was (and still is!) very hot, dusty, and wind-blown, and we quickly passed through it, headed for Albuquerque and our last stop along the way -- Santa Fe. These days (circa 2017) there are two excellent Interstate highways that service the Albuquerque/Santa Fe areas -- Interstate 40 going East/West and Interstate 25 going North/South, and one can get from Albuquerque to Santa Fe on Interstate 25 in about an hour. Back in 1948, however, the connection was a two-lane road that ran through the little town of Bernalillo, and the journey could typically take several hours, depending on traffic. It was this little stretch of road that was the final leg of our journey from Los Angeles to Santa Fe, which would turn out to be our home for the next two-plus years!