Funeral service for Carleta Raun Taylor (February 2, 1943 - January 11, 1964), 20-year-old recent bride of David A Taylor, bowling and boxing writer for The Independent, Press-Telegram was held in Belmont Heights Methodist Church. Mrs Taylor's father, Reverend George M Raun, is pastor of Belmont Heights Methodist Church.

When the Taylors were married seven months ago, they went on a long motor scooter honeymoon trip in Mexico. Readers of the newspapers followed their adventurous trip through dispatches sent back by Taylor.

Mrs Taylor of Claremont Avenue is survived by her husband, her parents, and a brother, Rockwell Raun. The family has suggested contributions to the American Cancer Society.

Independent, Long Beach, California, January 14, 1964

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Mexican Honeymoon - Yes, They'd Go Again on Scooter

(Editor's Note:  Back in the United States after a honeymoon in Mexico via motor scooter, Dave Taylor and his bride, Carleta, sum up their 'harebrained venture' and consider 'was it worth it?')

By Dave Taylor

After our two and a half month motor scooter honeymoon junket through Mexico, Carleta and I get this one first on everybody's list of quiz questions:  'Would you do it again?'

I guess it's kind of an acid test of the whole hare-brained venture -- or maybe just a polite way of asking, was your honeymoon worth it?

In any case, we're both pretty definite on one point, Traveling by motor scooter is the ONLY way to go.

It would be hard to find a better way to really see new country than on a two-wheeled machine -- and we saw almost 3,500 miles of it.

From Mexicali we chugged across 600 miles of 130 degree desert to Guaymas, putted down into the tropic mosquito belt around Mazatlan and San Blas, inched our way through to Guadalajara and Mexico rain-swept mountain passes to Guadalajara and Mexico City at 5-to-20 mph clip, dropped back down to Acapulco, and then home.

Aboard were the two of us, 150 pounds of luggage and two very vocal Mexican parrots, all squeezed on one small seven and a half horse-power Vespa. We're told that you couldn't even see the scooter and we looked like one great mass of luggage moving down the road.

By the time we reached Mexico City both the scooter and my typewriter pooped out. After carefully considering which machine I should spend precious pesos to repair, I picked the scooter. But even with a complete motor overhaul and two new tires I had to buy in Los Mochis, the tab on the trip came to only $450 averaging out at about $6.50 a day for both of us.

The cost of operating the scooter, gas, oil, spark plugs, etc., not counting the overhaul and tires, was $35, or about a penny a mile. In all, we came out a whole lot better than any of the popular $5 person per day schemes I heard so much about before we went.

The big secret of course, was that at least a third of our meals, and certainly that much of our nights' lodgings were on the house in the homes of Mexican friends we made along the road. That turns out to be another big advantage of scootering it.

It's entirely possible, traveling by car or airplane, to tour Mexico, completely without ever really meeting a Mexican. And, from what we saw, a lot of Americans down there do just that. But, I guess there's something magnetic about two grubby gringos and a couple of Mexican parrots bopping around on scooter-back. We could hardly get into any town without attracting a following of the curious out to discover just what kind of nuts we were.

When we stopped along the highway for a rest break, nearly every Mexican car that passed checked with us to make sure everything was all right. We were never in any town more than 15 minutes or half hour before we had met at least one friend who would be our host for the whole time we were there. And by 'host,' I mean just that. We got the whole treatment -- tours, dinners, parties, soccer games, shows -- the works.

Would we go it again? Eh, could you just give us a couple of minutes to get our goggles on?

Independent Press-Telegram (Long Beach, California), September 29, 1963