IT WAS the wildflowers that were so unexpected as I slugged down a can of soda and ate trail mix for breakfast ... and lunch. Route 5 was like any other highway except for this riot of yellow and orange overflowing the guard rail and encroaching on the road like the crowds lining the Tour de France. When I arrived at my motel, I asked what they were called. The local shrugged and smiled: "I don't know. Just a ground cover, I think."
Weather is the most unpredictable part of an outdoor lecture venue. I had checked weather.com before I left: 75 degrees with the sun icon partially obscured by a cloud. The same picture for all five days of my trip. Pretty good outook. And so the contents of my carry-on luggage were equally optimistic—adding only a sweater over my shoulders for the seven hours of air conditioning on the cross-country flight.
As I left my first event—indoors at a civic center—the first drops splattered against the windshield of the car. "They're forecasting rain for the weekend," said the lecture chairman, knowing where I was heading next. Not just showers, typical for that area, but rain. My slicker was still hanging on the umbrella stand back home. The thought had come to pack it ... been noted and then forgotten somewhere between the toothpaste and the separate stacks of directions I'd mapped online for the different destinations.
