You Can't Get Lost

Heading North.

This is the last leg of the journey. Thank goodness I'm not on my last leg.

It was tough leaving Jaye and Lyndon and Tyler, and as always, I was late leaving to go to my next stop. But I did get away in time. My last stop of the day was Las Vegas. Yeah, I know, back tracking to Sin City was out of the way, but Las Vegas, New Mexico was not.

But I had a special stop on the way. I was going to visit another college friend, Bill Russell. Bill was a music major and received performance degrees in piano and voice. He would often practice on the piano in the lounge at our dorm and was the type of friend that Sally and I would walk through and ask if he had anything going on that night. We'd be going out to eat and a movie and "do you want to come along." And it would be the three of us; Bill was never a third-wheel. He was always entertaining and could talk on a huge range of topics. He was always friendly, helpful, someone you liked immediately and enjoyed being around. One incredible fact was that he was a professional rodeo performer in high school. He was a Roman Rider, the guy that would stand on the backs of two horses

Sally and I lost Bill for a long time, almost 45 years. One day about four years ago, one of Sally's elementary school students who had grown up and was getting a vocal performance degree at UWyo, attended a vocal workshop in Steamboat Springs. She wrote about it on her Facebook page and mentioned that the person giving the workshop was a professional opera singer and opera company manager named William Russell. Sally messengered her and asked if she would ask him if he went to school at Univ of Colorado in the 70s and did he know Sally Edgar. And it was him. We started learning about his life and background after we got in touch, and it is amazing. After he graduated, he moved to New York and sang with the NYC Lyric Opera and then the Met. He has sung at the great halls in Europe and the States, and around the world. A few years into his career, someone recommended that he should sing Heldentenor, the big tenor voice you associate with Wagner. As the demands of singing those kinds of roles became too great, Bill (after receiving an MBA) started managing opera companies across the United States. And he seems to know everyone in the opera world.

He now lives in a community outside of Santa Fe. He is still a consultant for opera companies, still gets called on to perform (at 71) and is a gourmet chef who gets invited to prepare food for events around the west and Mexico. He is also a world class crossword puzzle competitor and is a reviewer for the NY Times Sunday crossword puzzle, amongst others. He is just an incredible person, and just as nice and friendly as he was freshman year in college

He fixed sourdough waffles for me for brunch. Super. Darker than I would have made them, but combined with the sourdough, it was just right. Then out for a drive around his community. Strangely, I had been there before. There is a big reservoir there that we had been to for a concrete canoe race when Univ of New Mexico hosted. That was probably back around 2000, and the water level was probably 30 or more feet higher, but I can remember where we parked and where all the canoes were spread out along the beach. Now there is a large open campground there. FOOD for thought!

When we got back, Bill fixed Ruben sandwiches for us and I showed him my sous vide. When I first came, he had been working on his crossword and other puzzles, an Acrostic and a Rows Garden. He showed me how they worked, spending about 10 minutes on each. I worked on the Rows Garden for about two more hours and got close to finishing. He was telling me answers almost as fast as I could read them. I was there for about an hour longer than I had scheduled, but leaving was just too hard.

I did finally leave and drove about two hours to Las Vegas, NM. It was a short day on purpose. I had originally scheduled driving from Albuquerque to Pueblo, CO, but it really was further than I was trying to schedule stops, and then I found out that a Harvey House Hotel had recently been restored and opened. The Castaneda (https://castanedahotel.org/) was the first Harvey hotel built beside the AT&SF railroad tracks in 1898 and was so successful that the Alvarado in Albuquerque was modeled after it.