Today it seems that I am adjusting to the time zone change and the fact that I went from a city of millions yesterday to a town of 20,000 today. It is a bit of a culture change. My mother went home to her town of 3,000 and I can imagine that she is now adjusting to country life again.

Some friends asked how it was to drive in LA. It is actually just like driving in Houston. The freeways are massive and crowded.

The best meal I had in LA was at Bar Pintxo in Santa Monica. We went to visit the 3rd Street Promenade. Unfortunately it rained while we were promenading so we cut that visit short. But the Bar Pintxo was excellent even though I still have not figured out how to pronounce their name. Their food is Spanish tapas and we loved it. All those cute little trays of delicacies arriving at our table every few minutes cheered us up despite the rain.

The best person we met in a service capacity was the front desk clerk at our hotel. He was gracious and kind in a city that can often be overwhelming. I recommend staying at the Culver Hotel so you can experience their great hospitality.

We discovered another restaurant that bears mentioning here: the S & W Country Diner at 9748 Washington Blvd in Culver City. It was a gem of a place that harkens back to the diners of yore. And not in a fake way. This was the real McCoy. Vinyl booths. Good, hearty breakfasts. One of those bars with bar stools that face the area where the waitstaff works.

We took one of those tours of Hollywood. We were busy snapping pictures of the stars on sidewalks and trying to avoid the people dressed up as movie characters. At one point we saw Spiderman, Darth Vader, and that Super Mario character talking to each other on the sidewalk and giving each other tips about the best way to pose for pictures with tourists. While we were strolling along, one of those tour operators offered us a limo ride tour of Hollywood and Beverly Hills and before you could say Paris Hilton, we were off on a tour.

First we passed Bob Barker's house, then we went to a scenic overlook of the Hollywood sign, then we got in a fuss with some dude (it turned out to be a shared limo tour :( ). The dude was sitting at the back where the air-conditioning controls were located and he kept turning the air off. We were sweltering hot! His girlfriend fell asleep or passed out. The three ladies from Wisconsin were strangely quiet. I got carsick and had to ride in the front with the driver. And Toot fell asleep and sleep with her head on my mom's lap and missed the majority of the tour which included Elvis's old house and the Playboy mansion. All in all, that was mostly a waste of money.

Oh, and we visited the La Brea tarpits. That was really cool. But stinky. Toot found some erasers for her collection in the gift shop there.

And that was the trip to LA. Quick.

This is the view from our hotel room in Culver City, California. We had a whirlwind trip out here to San Diego and Los Angeles. Now we are headed back to Texas this morning.

This hotel is located in the western part of Los Angeles and is our usual place to stay when we visit here. I like the neighborhood around the hotel very much. There are great restaurants within easy walking distance of the hotel. This visit we tried Fords Filling Station. It was quite good but really, really loud inside. I will write more about that on my food blog later. Once I get home!

This is a fountain at the Mission of San Juan Capistrano in the town named after it. The mission is located somewhat south of Los Angeles. This is the glorious riot of succulents planted in the pot of the fountain. The mission is beautiful and very old. I was fascinated with the plants that are everywhere. There was a huge variety of trees, succulents, and cacti throughout the grounds of the mission.

Wondering where the Trans World Expedition is now? Why, they have just left Lake Titicaca. (I recall as a child that we thought that name was hilariously funny for some reason.)

This is their picture of Pisac, agricultural terraces. Now the expedition is on to Bolivia. Reading the ongoing adventures of this expedition has opened my eyes to the beautiful cities and towns of South America that I never realized even existed.

You can donate money to help them buy gas as they make their trip around the world this year.

Each day I spend a good deal of time writing. My full-time job, my journal, my blog, and my personal writing all enable me to flex my writing muscles on a daily basis. Sometimes I even stretch a little further and use a website called WritingFix.com. This site gives you random writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing. You never know what they will ask you about. Here is my daily writing prompt that popped up when I went to their site:

"What was up there?  Think of an interesting ceiling you once stared at and thought about.  Write about you staring...and what it was that caused you to stare."

I immediately thought of some of the beautiful churches I have visited in my lifetime. First in my mind is Old Saint Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco. It is located on California Street in the heart of Chinatown. It was built in 1854. It survived the earthquake of 1906 but was gutted the next day in the fires that raged through the city. The church interior was rebuilt after that. The interior is beautiful and gothic. The ceiling is high about the pews. I have never taken a picture of the interior although I have attended mass there whenever I happen to be in San Francisco. This is a picture of the interior taken in 1927...it still looks much the same today.

Old Saint Mary's Cathedral website

My daughter made a list of wishes to send to Santa Claus this year. Then when Christmas morning rolled round, she got some of the things on her Santa list. She also got a few things that she didn't ask for. She told me later on Christmas day that Santa always brought her some cool things that she didn't ask for but were just perfect. She said Santa thought of neat presents to bring her that she never even thought of herself.

Santa used to do the same thing for me when I was a kid. I'd get a few things that I never thought to ask for.

One Christmas in particular stands out in my memory. I was about 8 or 9 years old. Two of the things Santa brought me was a little blue suitcase and a guitar. The suitcase was great. I did not have my very own suitcase before that. I wonder if that first of many suitcases I have owned is what fueled my wanderlust for travelling.

The guitar was a mystery to me though. Santa forgot to include a how-to guide or music books. It sat propped in the corner of my room as I grew up. It lived in all my homes that I have occupied as an adult. It was propped against the piano in my livingroom at my house in Wild Peach, Texas. That was the house that burned down completely while we were out of town in winter 2006.

And so that guitar met with a sad end. I never learned to play guitar. But my cousin Micah did. He told me awhile back that the guitar I got that one Christmas so many years ago was what spurred him to learn to play the guitar. He said that every time he was at our house visiting, he picked up my guitar and picked at it. He saved and saved his money as a child until he had enough to buy his own guitar. Then in high school and college he had his own rock band.

He still plays guitar even though his rock band years are long over. It makes me happy to think that my guitar that sat un-used by me, brought some joy to someone else. I think if I had known how much he yearned for a guitar way back in childhood, I would have simply given him that guitar. I feel guilty now for having that guitar and never using it while someone else would have used it and loved it far more than me.

I took the month off from writing! I did not work on the writing of either of my next books. And I did not write in my personal blog or our company blog. I just gave it all a rest and went to Disney World.

Oh, I didn't stay at Disney World the entire month. Only 7 days. It was a fun-filled but exhausted 7 full days at Disney. We eeked out every minute we could there by going into the parks during early magic hours, staying all day, and then into the evenings as late as the parks were open. The three of us had a blast.

Then we went to Mississippi to visit the family for a week. Then Arkansas to visit more family for five days. Finally we rolled back into Texas just in time to ring in the new year. I hope 2010 is just as good, if not better, than 2009.

This past weekend we went to the Texas Renaissance Festival near Plantersville, Texas which is the largest renaissance fair in the world. Last year we had such a terrible time with traffic that this year, we resolved to get there right when the festival opened in the morning. And since I am such a stickler for schedules and punctuality, we did indeed get there at 9 am on Sunday. Traffic was light and parking was a breeze. We were parked right near the front entrance.

It is difficult to describe exactly what to expect at the festival to someone who has never been. I have been going there since 1985 and it has been growing each year as they erect more buildings and add more attractions. They get about 25,000 people per day, according to the average attendance numbers. They are only open on weekends the second half of October and all of November.

The main attration seems to be the food and shopping. You can spend some serious money on food there and for the most part, the food is very good. Everything from Polish food to Greek food to German food to English pub food. Drink prices are ridiculous but that is to be expected at these sort of events.

And there are lots of costumed people roaming about. For the most part, everyone seems to abide by the dress code of the Renaissance years. But there are always some exceptions. Like the people who come dressed in chains. And nothing else. Not a sight for childrens eyes, let me tell you.

And then we spotted a swamp monster. I am sure there were swamp monsters back during the Renaissance years as well as today, but I didn't think it was particularly fitting with the theme that someone dressed like that for this festival.

The Texas Renaissance Festival website

Here is a blog well worth following:

Trans World Expedition

Nicolas Rapp decided to spend the next year driving around the world and he started this week. He is driving a Toyota Landcruiser outfitted with a tent on top. He has a friend who is joining him for the first leg of the journey through North and South America. He left from New York City and is now in Virginia. I hope you enjoy following his story for the next year.