irgin Fiews by Pirginia

PACIFIC CIRCLE

Well, here I am back in harness again. Last year it was Europe, this year the South Pacific. While there were a lot of TV type things done in Europe last year which justified some rather de- tailed reporting, this year's trip was primarily my own vacation so I won't bore you with a day by day descrip- tion but perhaps you will be interested in some of the highlights and know- ing where your roving girl reporter has been.

First a word about the circumstances: I went on a tour with 23 other people. I went as Virginia, stayed as Virginia, and WAS Virginia to everyone else. I shared a room with another woman who, after 45 nights in the same bedroom went home none the wiser about my some- what androgenous nature than she was in the beginning. She did find me a rather intriguing and perplexing type since I was capable and active in ways and areas that most other women were not at my ap- parent age. She was a very active outdoor type herself and at first regarded me as a somewhat effete, middle aged type. She asked me, with an obviously negative answer expected, whether I had ever camped out and slept on the ground under the stars and was evidently a bit taken aback to find that I had done so many times. Since she went in for "health" it seemed further out of character to see that at my age I was agile as she and could kick as high as my head. She early learned in one of our midnight bull (cow!) sessions that I had been a chemist and had a Ph.D. though I asked her to keep these facts from the rest of the crowd. So I provided her much food for thought in

71