Blogging can be frustrating. I wrote a long blog about my Los Angeles trip only to have it vanish into the internet fog when I pushed the button to publish. It is hard to get the enthusiasm to publish it a second time so several days have elapsed.

We had a fine trip to Los Angeles. Our clinicians were reasonable, charming, and had a grip on their material. The girls sang their shoes off and audiences were gracious and wondering at their sound. A wise fellow came up and said, "How many of those girls take private lessons?" Of course in a way they all take from me. But I actually had taught 23 of the 45 privately.

Los Angeles is a "Starwars" - like environment, with everything from space age buildings, trees, plants and flowers, to actual storm troopers walking around on the street. Movie magic everywhere. We kept riding by movies being shot over here and over there. The back lot at Universal was very interesting. The weather was charming except for one day that was cool. And most amazingly, my sinuses cleared up while we were out there. Upon return however, sinus problems were back in a day. Ugh.

I took lots of photos. I've got to figure out how to post photos on the blog or somewhere. We heard some fine choirs from other places. I heard from other conventioneers that the venues were too spread out and you spent your time racing from place to place, or walking a million blocks if you missed the bus. My chaperones were stellar and took care of details in the best fashion ever. So I got time to go to my room at night and rest. Next year's choir trip is to New York City and people are getting excited about it already. Probably take about 100 next time.

I have to talk about Los Angeles plant life. Such Palm trees. So tall, so old, so beautiful. Nothing like Florida. Florida has pygmy palms. And the bird of paradise flowers in L.A. are amazing. There were trees along the ways that were laden with red flowers, that I never was introduced to. And Ficus trees with smooth white trunks and leafy green canopies were everywhere. Beverly Hills only allows one particular tree per each street, so when you look down her avenues every tree is the same, until the next street where every tree is the same but different from the last street.

The beach at Santa Monica was amazing. So much sand. Easily 200 yards or more from the beach road to the water. Sand, sand, sand. And the mountains and cliffs running out into the sea on the northside. What a vista. No wonder everyone wants to live there. And when Sissy and I were out wading in the water on a Monday morning in February (it was over 70 degrees on the beach), it seemed that we had the whole place to ourselves. Okay there were 10 other people out there on a beach that could easily handle 100,000.

And it takes only a morning to get back and forth. What would Lewis and Clark say?