If you want to come to our house, Feb 19 – March 18, you are welcome to do so. But you will have to eat out, because we won’t be here to cook. (Not that I do a lot of the cooking.) We’re flying down to visit Mom, then driving to Ft. Lauderdale to take a cruise through the Panama Canal. The cruise line will drop us off in San Diego. From there, we’ll take Amtrak to Oxnard, CA. Then rent a car and spend several days driving up the coastal highway to San Francisco. We’ll spend a few days in San Francisco, then fly home.

The cruise doesn’t take any planning, but the rest of the vacation does, and we’ve had a lot of fun planning it. We have the coastal drive mapped out. Obviously there will be hikes, views, and coastal towns, but there’s also much more. We’ll spend a night in Old Town San Diego. To maintain its authenticity, the hotel doesn’t have any TVs. That’s not a problem because we’ll walk down the street and see a production of La Cage aux Folles at the Cygnet Theatre. The next day we’ll take a train to Oxnard, CA to get through the LA traffic, then rent a car. We’ll be stopping at the Hearst Castle and spending a night at the Hearst Hacienda. And of course we will visit the fabulous aquarium in Monterey. It promises to be an amazing drive.

Otherwise, life here is more mundane but still plenty of fun. We had a condo party Friday at a local German restaurant. (Great party, mediocre food.) Last night we accepted an invitation to the neighborhood volunteer dinner, which was another great evening. (I volunteer to run the neighborhood web site.)

I hope this finds everybody doing well.