USA

Hating to leave Reno after all our adventures, I flew on to California leaving behind memories of a sandy slapstick Shakespeare adventure at Lake Tahoe, a Hillary rally where we cheered Bill on as he gave a great speech, several memorable dinners with Cindy and John, lots of great bluegrass music by the "Thrown Together" group, and a great deal of laughter at Sam, Cindy's new black streak kitten. After all that, I needed a rest which I am getting here in Oceanside at Sybil's beautiful beach condo. But this will soon come to an end since tomorrow I'll get up a 4:30 a.m., drive to San Diego where I'll turn in my car and take an early flight out for the big apple. I'll meet Sybil there -- we're using frequent flier miles -- and Wednesday we're going to see Spring's Awakening. Pretty racy show for two old school teachers! Then on to Germany!

I left Madison a day early since Stephen, my son who lives in Illinois volunteered to pick me up. I spent a couple of nights with him and Susan, his wife, and Mr. Higgins, their Yorkie. On Saturday morning Steve drove me to Chicago where I caught a plane for Reno to visit Cindy, my daughter. Since I've been here, it has been blue grass all the way. Sunday we had a whole band in the living room for a rehearsal -- they have a big show coming up. The band is made up of doctors, two on banjo, one on string bass, and one on fiddle. Cindy plays the guitar. They all sing and they're pretty good. After the rehearsal, we had a barbeque on the deck. Cindy's house is on a hill overlooking the campus of U of Nevada and downtown Reno. As it gets dark and all the lights come on in the casinos and hotels, the view is magnificent. Then last night the cloggers showed up and we had blue grass tunes, singing and dancing in the garage. Right now Cindy is practicing guitar -- more blue grass!
The weather here is hot -- like 92! Tonight we're going to Lake Tahoe to see the outdoor Shakespeare Festival -- "Taming of the Shrew" I think. It will be much cooler up there, but it gets cool everywhere in the high desert, in the sixties at night.

I like Reno; it's great being back in the mountains but on Saturday I'll fly off to San Diego. More from California.