And given some of what had happened en route, one might have thought it perfectly reasonable to lock oneself in and do nothing but recuperate for the next week. Their hosts had the good taste to leave them alone; both T.R. and his wife, Veronica Schmidt, sent their handwritten regrets that they couldn’t be there to say hello in person and left them in the hands of staff members who clearly knew that being unobtrusive was part of the job description. Yet, perhaps because of that hands-off policy, Saskia found that after she had spent twenty minutes drowsing in a bathtub, washing away the Brazos grime and taking inventory of her bug bites, she was of a mind to put on some clean clothes and go back to the hotel for a drink. Some kind of optional social hour was listed on the schedule.