7/16/06 This update is being written at Boca Rest Campground near Boca Reservoir, which is located between Truckee and Reno, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Our friends, Bruce & Maria Roberts, who were with us on our Panama trip in 2004, are the campground hosts here. They arranged for us to have a lovely site overlooking the water. It feels good to be set up here for a while, now that we have finished fixing up our rental house in Woodland and the new tenants have moved in. That happened last Wednesday, and we were very glad the whole fix-up process was over because we were EXHAUSTED! We are still in recovery mode.

From Woodland, we drove to Roseville to visit our dear friends, Jan & Bill Vecchio. How nice to camp in their driveway and have them prepare a delicious pasta dinner for us while we just SAT. The next day we drove to Lake Wildwood, near Grass Valley, to visit my youngest brother, Jerry, and his wife, Diann. They moved to a lovely home right on the golf course there last year, and have been enjoying retirement and frequent golf episodes ever since. Now they have a new corgi puppy, named Penny, who is quite energetic, and very cute and charming. They also have a new boat, which enabled us to go out on the lake on Friday with Jerry. It was a beautiful day, the water was warm yet refreshing, and we enjoyed the outing.

Saturday we drove here to Boca Reservoir and although it was packed with weekenders, it was still great to be here. At 5600 feet elevation, it is cooler than in the valley and yet there is lots of sun. Today most of the campers left and it is quiet. Bruce and Elaine have even gone out on the lake to try to catch a few trout, even though they didn’t leave until nearly 8:30 PM. Bruce says the trout mostly bite between 9:30 and 11:30 AM so we will see how they do.

Our plan is to stay here a few weeks because I would like to visit my daughter and granddaughters, who live in Sparks. We also need to take care of business that piled up while we were in Portugal, Spain and Morocco and also fixing up the rental. The dreaded taxes still need to be done too, as well as quite a bit of research for our upcoming trip in August. On August 28 we are leaving for Istanbul. After 5 days there on our own, we are supposed to join a 31 day tour with Imaginative Traveller through Turkey, Syria, Jordan and ending in Cairo. Then we have 5 days alone in Cairo before joining a 16 day tour through Egypt. Of course, with all the developments in the Middle East, it remains to be seen whether these trips will take place. Lots can happen between now and when those tours start, so we aren’t going to fret about it.

So, if any of you are in the Lake Tahoe, Reno area, give us a call at 928-581-3624 and we can make plans to get together.

For those of you who have e-mailed us and not received a reply, thanks because we love to hear from you and now that we have a bit of time, I will try to catch up on some replies.