Bullhead City, Arizona

It has been wonderful to see Jane and Franco. This has never happened before on our trips, and would never have been possible without the internet. I had an e-mail the day before yesterday - Franco saying "I see you are in Arizona. We're in Bullhead City", to which I replied "Hey, we're in Kingman - we're only an hour away!" When I saw them, it was as if I had come home.

We arrived in Bullhead City just after 10:00 yesterday morning for our reunion . There ensued a full day of catching up on each other's holidays, gambling at the casinos in Laughlin, Nevada - just across the Colorado River - and walking the riverside path. Jane and I went shopping at a little outlet mall and bought jewellery. That is to say, we bought beaded magnetic bracelets and, in my case, a stretchy bracelet made from a very pretty reddish orange stone. Then we met the men over at the Colorado Belle for dinner.

We needed to walk that dinner off, so we set off down the path, stopping along the way to gamble, mostly on the penny slots. Franco did play some craps and blackjack, and later in the evening he sat down at a table hosted by an on-screen automated dealer that appeared to have had breast augmentation surgery. Jane and Robin and I stood watching, fascinated by the brown-haired dealer, giggling in delight as, every few minutes, she looked over to her left, then to her right, then straight into her cleavage. She also had a 'come-hither' look that she used on occasion.

When things started to turn sour at that table, we moved to the next one, where the robo-dealer was a blonde in a teddy. The whole experience was hilarious. Well, it was hilarious for us. Franco lost, so it wasn't quite so amusing for him, though he took it well. In all, my evening's gambling and observing entertainment cost me $3, and even my jewellery binge only came to $8, so I consider myself officially a Cheap Date.

One of the things we discussed last night was the weather back home. Franco and Jane have been getting reports of 1/2 meter of snow, and we've had e-mails from Victoria and from Northern Washington that paint a similar picture. It appears that this winter is never going to end.

Accordingly, we are heading for Barstow this morning, via Needles. We will go straight up the I-5 in California, in an attempt to put off the winter travel as long as possible. Jane and Franco are headed to Lake Havasu. They will put off their return until around Easter, hoping that Spring will have arrived by then.