The 26th annual Carson City Rendezvous is scheduled for the weekend of June 12 to 14, 2009. Its original name was the Kit Carson Rendezvous, in honor of the great American western hero for whom the city was originally named. Carson City is the capital of the state of Nevada, and is a much more traditional Western town than its more glittering and glamorous sister cities in the state, Reno and Las Vegas.

The city’s pride in its Western past is demonstrated every year at the picturesque Rendezvous weekend celebration in the Mills Park area. The streets and parks are filled with people strolling, singing and dancing in 18th Century costumes, as the cowboys, cowgirls, Pony Express, stagecoaches and Conestoga wagons race and rumble down its streets.

First, a personal story about the famed hotel. Called back for active Navy duty in the Korean War in 1951, and before shipping out to the Pacific, I managed to get myself into a six-week training course at a facility near New York City. On weekend nights, our gang of Navy guys hit the streets of Manhattan.

We were junior officers and CPOs, all with WWII service, so we thought we were hot stuff in our dress blues and chests full of campaign ribbons. Our mission was to find young ladies, and we knew where the most likely candidates would hang out. The Waldorf-Astoria, of course. We couldn’t afford the astronomical room rates of $25 a night, but we’d try to look as if we could.

Last year we took a cruise that started in the beautiful city of Buenos Aires. There was no Evita there singing, “Don’t cry for me, Argentina.” The only time we came close to crying was when we found a little mom and pop cafe just a few blocks from our hotel in a residential area.The specialty dish of arroz con pollo (chicken and rice) was so delicious, it brought tears of joy to our eyes. The price was very reasonable because it wasn’t a usual tourist place. In Buenos Aires and any other city, tourists should look for well-recommended restaurants where locals go. Otherwise, prices could go through the roof.

We were visiting Holland at just the right time. It was the first of May, and we took the bus from Amsterdam about 30 miles out to the famed Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse. Even before we got there, many of the fields along the way were blankets of brilliant yellows, whites, reds, blues and purples, giving us a preview of what was in store for us. Every spring, more than a million visitors from all over the world visit Keukenhof during its two-month blossom time, from the last week in April through June. There are hundreds of varieties of flowers, but the big attractions are the tulips. Hundreds of thousands of bulbs of many bright colors are carefully hand-planted in the fall in beds that stretch for 70 acres of the garden grounds. When springtime comes around, so do the admirers. For more information: Keukenhof, Stationsweg 166a, 2161 AM Lisse, The Nethlands. Go on line to: www.keukenhof.nl.