Merry Christmas, Los Angeles, and the Blood Diamond movie...

We headed north from San Diego on Tuesday this week, getting to Dana Point that night. We had dinner with new friends we met in Napa in October – Tom and Karen H who live in San Juan Capistrano (where the swallows return to every spring). They invited us for a home-cooked meal when we eventually got to the LA area, and we had a great time. On Wednesday, we drove through greater LA and now are camped out in Valencia. I’m very happy to have the San Diego – Los Angeles section of trailer towing done with!

Laura and I took this afternoon off to go see a movie – “Blood Diamond”. Although it’s received mixed reviews, we thought it was very well done – although quite violent. Perhaps we’re more interested in the troubles of Africa after John D’s trip there. I’d encourage you to see the picture – reinforces the unintended consequences of our (mostly Western) behavior…

We pick up Kathryn and David at LAX tomorrow morning, and then we’ll spend the afternoon at 6-Flags Magic Mountain (basically a big roller-coaster theme park) – it’s about a mile from where we are. We board the cruise ship on Saturday morning and will have Christmas at sea – our first stop will be Puerta Vallarta on December 26^th. We’ll then visit Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas before heading back to Los Angeles.

Since we’ll be out of contact while on the cruise ship, I’d like to wish everybody a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Platonic love to many of you …. “real” love to the rest – you know who you are ;-)

Peace!

PS: Flickr is now up to date with all our photos...