Little problems

I told stories at a nursing home in Reno, Nevada.  The receptionist sent me to a spot that seemed reasonable enough, with a baby grand piano behind me and the residents in a half circle.  I started.

That's when I found out that the path through the performance area was a main thoroughfare for nursing home traffic.  The residents wandering through and nurses administering medications were bad enough.  I was used to that.  But then a moving company began to bring in the furniture for two new residents, a man and his wife.  That room must have been enormous.  Mattresses, a television set, dressers, a desk, and more came through, all while I was trying to perform.  In the end, we made it into a running joke.  I told the residents about the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee.  That city is a major switching yard for the railroad.  Whenever a train came through, the storytellers simply stopped and waited.   Same thing for the moving guys.  We all were good natured about it, I thought. When the two guys finished, we all gave them a round of applause.

In the end, the residents asked me to stay a little longer and sing more songs for them, and I did.

After that, I took my car to Jiffy Lube to double check the work that was done in Golden, but they steered me to a garage a block away.  Those guys were real sweeties.   They decided the overheating was not due to the thermostat but to the radiator...and even that wouldn't be a problem when I got the old car back to Wisconsin.

Their advice:
1.  Watch elevations. Mark summits on the map.  That's where I could expect to have problems.
2.  Pay attention to the big rigs.  If they are having problems, so will I.   
3.  Travel when the weather is cool.  They figured that heat was my biggest problem.

Then they told me the routes to take to avoid high elevations.  They thought the worst would be getting to Gold Beach, Oregon.  I will try to do that route early in the morning to avoid the heat.

So far so good.  I am in Weaverville, California and haven't had a problem since I left Reno.