1930

I guess this is the travel number. In early January Lari Widmayer and son Fred came to Arizona to spend two and a half months in Green Valley. Independent travelers, they wouldn't even tell me when their flight was due in Tucson didn't want to be a burden! And Betty and Ted Wolf planned to be in Tucson for two weeks at the end of February, in time for Frank Logan '51's traveling Will-to-Excel medicine show.

My winter column carried Holiday Greetings "from sunny, hot, dry Arizona." Bad guess! Five inches of rain in December, when a full year's normal total is only a little over eleven; and in the first nine days of 1993, whose normal precipitation is 0.27 inch, 2.39 inches fell on us and on the Widmayers.

In the summer issue I mentioned Bobbieand Chuck Jacobs's up-coming cruise to Vietnam on the Ocean Pearl. Arriving early in Hong Kong to enjoy six extra days there, they didn't learn until then that the Ocean Pearl had had a fire and had cancelled the Vietnam trip to make repairs. So they went back home to Palm Desert after stopping in Hawaii to visit a son.

But then, with time on their hands, the Journeying Jacobses fell for the blandishments of an Alaska Airlines/Love Holidays brochure: "The journey of a lifetime, one of the world's last and most beautiful frontiers," to be explored via the "legendary Trans-Siberian Express," etc. I wish you could read all of the Jacobses' report on a horrible trip, but, to summarize, "We should have endured the summer heat of Palm Desert—or motored to Lake Tahoe for a truly beautiful vacation." As for the awesome landscape of Eastern Siberia, on a scale of one to ten it ranks "ZERO." And the Legendary Trans-Siberian Express was just that, a legend. If you're thinking of going there, Chuck or I would be glad to send you a copy of the letter.

Where now? In February they're cruising from Papeete to Sydney, thence to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. In March, hopefully, on to Singapore for 12 days on the Ocean Pearl, headed, at last, for Vietnam. Stay tuned.

318 Los Rincones, Green Valley, AZ 85614-2937