Everyone was a little surprised this afternoon to see a shuttle bus loaded with foreign tourists roll up to the Natural History Museum. With a few calls, the museum director was able to round up five people that spoke two other languages each. That is eleven languages in all!

It’s is sometimes surprising to consider the different lives folks lived before coming here. Ken makes no secret he was an East-Coast academic with no interest in politics, and Amma still gets visits from colleagues from Canada that teach from the evolutionary botany she pioneered.

Other folks, well, that’s their business.

So, it was a little surprising when one of the volunteers helping herd tourists outted themselves as former Interpol, and another one said “Funny that, me too! Which bureau?”

Small towns are the crossroads of the Universe.

As to the tourists, it seems someone posted one of the old brochures on the events board at a nearby resort, so we have 20 guests from six nations all expecting to see a program on Oregon mining history that was last put on in 1998.

Well, we are nothing if not resourceful, and with a few calls more, we had speakers and costumes, and even some of the old scripts as some folks never throw anything away. We also managed to haul out some old excavation equipment salvaged from the Crandall claim before it collapsed. It was an afternoon to remember.

The receipts from the gift shop weren’t too shabby neither.