And Back to San Francisco

My stay in Reno was uneventful, as it mostly consisted of me getting all worked up about the interview, going to the interview, and then coming back from the interview feeling really good about how it went. And I should have. I passed the first round of interviews and have been placed into a pool of eligible candidates for any K-6 job that comes open in Washoe County, Nevada. I’m hopeful.

On Wednesday, it was time to leave with the sunrise. I needed to be back in San Francisco for a 1:45 pm flight, and wanted to pass Lake Tahoe on the way. A quick 3,000 foot gain in elevation outside Reno put me at 8000 feet…much higher than the meager 7227 of Donner Summit two days earlier. The town of Tahoe was rather touristy, but to see the lake ringed by such high mountains was neat. I don’t want to say that I was desensitized to the beauty of it by the time I got there, but by that point Tahoe needed to blow my mind to be truly noteworthy on this extravaganza. It didn’t, but that might be because of some vistas of Lake Dunmore in Vermont. Other than Tahoe, there wasn’t much to see on the drive back across I-80, except where 80 ended, which was kind of cool because I can say I’ve been to both ends of that particular interstate highway. 

The final notable thing about this trip, including the drive home from Philadelphia International, was Thomas. I have no idea what this man’s real name was, but he struck me as the kind of guy who would not go by a shortened version of his name. If he was Thomas, he was never Tom. If he was Robert he was never Bob nor Rob. So I decided to call him Thomas, and Thomas talked literally from the time we got on the plane (and had probably been talking before that, but I can’t verify that) until the time we landed. I was afraid the oxygen masks would fall just because of all the air he was using. The only times he stopped were so the Dutch sounding woman he was talking to, who he was not with, could get a few words in edgewise, but I only noticed that happening maybe once an hour. At first I was aggravated, but then decided I wanted to shake his hand. For even I could not talk for five hours straight without breaking.