We started off with a desert hike outside of La Quinta. We met a nice couple from Ottawa. He had been a principal at Glebe High School, where he had also been a student and then a teacher. His wife was also a retired teacher. We had a lot in common and thought along the same lines. We agreed about the foolishness of high stakes testing and hiring administrators without enough teaching experience.
After our hike, we came back to the timeshare and read all afternoon. Mark is reading The Help on our Kindle and I am reading The Children's Book.
Then, we attended the night session of the PNB Paribas Open. The gates open at 4:30. We started in Stadium 2 and saw Mario Ancic beat the American Bobby Reynolds. (We saw Ancic two years ago, too.) We next saw women's doubles in the same stadium. Jelena Jankovic and Tatiana Garbin beat Lucie Safarova and Vera Zvonareva. It was quite exciting with excellent players. They all seemed to be relaxed and having fun, especially Jelena Jankovic who had a big smile most of the time. It began to get quite cold by this point and we were shivering. We next went to Stadium 3 for a very competitive match between 29 year old Sybille Bammer and 28 year old Katarina Srebotnik. Bammer won in the third set; both were real sluggers. Finally, we went into the main stadium to see Taylor Dent beaten by Ryan Harrison. Everyone was cold by the end of the night. We had a lovely chat with a mostly-retired profession from Queens College who volunteers for this tournament. We asked him if he thought the area was quite conservative and had a wonderful political conversation about holding children hostage to conservative tax cuts.
All in all - quite a perfect day - a hike, a quiet read and exciting tennis. Who could ask for much more?
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