Cross Country Trip Focuses on Automotive World of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Sue (left)       Tara (Right) Ninety years after the first woman drove across the United States, automotive journalists Sue Mead and Tara Baukus Mello are following in her footsteps as a celebration of pioneering automotive women and of the advances in automotive technology over the century.Their trip, titled Coast to Coast: Past to Future, began on June 9, 1999. In 1909, Alice Ramsey drove from New York City to San Francisco with three female friends, becoming the first woman to drive across the United States. The trip, which was sponsored by the Maxwell-Briscoe Car Company, was completed in 59 days, faster than all the men who had driven cross-country prior to Alice. Twenty-two year old Alice drove the entire distance and encountered many adventures along the way including multiple flat tires, broken axles, a group of Native Americans on horseback and even a sheriff's posse who suspected the women briefly of murder. Mead and Mello will begin their trip on June 9, the same day Alice departed, and follow her route as closely as possible to San Francisco, where they will arrive on June 17. Stops along the route will be keyed to stops that Alice made during the original trip. They will include Buffalo, Chicago, Sioux City, Cheyenne, Salt Lake City, Reno and Sacramento. They will begin the journey in a Maxwell, driving a short distance in New York City. The primary vehicle for the 3,500-mile trip will be the new Mercedes S-Class. Upon arriving in San Francisco, they will switch to a DaimlerChrysler hybrid, representing the future of automotive technology. The pair's progress will be tracked by a wide variety of media outlets as well as daily on the Internet. It is an interesting footnote that 1999 marks the 100th anniversary of the first woman to drive an automobile in America. Mrs. John Landon, a stenographer for Elwood Haynes, drove an 1897 Haynes-Apperson 1½ miles to the factory after lunch in the summer of 1899.