Ron and Gustavo

Okay..here's the proof that my friend Ron  got to meet Gustavo Dudamel. Leave it to Ron to pull it off and  I wouldn't be surprised, with Ron's winning charm, that he somehow manages to eventually lure to Alaska,  the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra. 
Ron's cousin dropped him off in the morning yesterday and he spent the day with me, with of course lunch at Gig Harbor's finest restaurant, The Tides Tavern. Later in the afternoon I took him to the foot ferry in Port Orchard  where he was to be picked up on the other side by my cousin. From her place he will head to Seattle, and then back to Alaska.
After the Mahler Project in Los Angeles, he headed east on the train to Virginia to visit his son, then up to New York to see two Operas, back through Chicago stopping to visit friends, he had a 45 day rail pass, and home through Oregon with a stop to visit another old friend. I doubt there is anyone who knows how to travel on a shoestring the way he can or have more fun. Of course, as usual, what he enjoyed most were all the folks he visited with along  the way and the one who stood out was the fellow from England who couldn't stop marveling  how huge our country is,  how much  wide open space, with no people and no fences, open land as far as you could see as they traveled from east to west
Thomas Sowell's bit of wisdom for today.