Bad trip, wonderful visit, & Bill Jones

So... we have spent one really delightful week with our great friends, Chuck & Diane Fitzgerald, in Encinitas, CA. I was so nice to see them again and also to not have to go anywhere or see anything. Their place is so nice we never wanted to leave.

To get there, we survived the 10+ hour flight from London to LAX, and the commuter hop to San Diego. Unfortunately, we had to fly from Lisbon to London the day before, and stay in London overnight. It was verry, verry harry. We stayed in a really awful place and paid a bunch of those expensive Britsh £s just to get to the awful place and back to the awful airport. I will never voluntarily go to England again; I don't care how many crop circles they have! Their Midsomer Murders are justified.

Bill Jones finally joined us in Encinitas, looking the same as ever after his rude uprooting. We are now on the slow train to Guadalupe CA where we will visit with Robin and Virginia for a bit. The most charitable thing you could say about American trains is that they are cute. Unfortunately Americans have no convenient transportation whatsoever in the majority of the country -- they seem to not even realize that their airplanes no longer save time, their trains are a sick joke, their buses are pathetic, and their road/highway system is so 20th century it's embarrassing. Oh, well, I may have to stay here for a while, so I'd better try to accept it. Like any other undeveloped country. No wonder the land is so much cheaper than it is in Portugal.

One reason I haven't written anything for so long is that I was waiting for Manfred to put the photos on the iBook, so I can put them on the blog. Obviously, I could wait forever and it would never happen until I insist. So, I hope there will be something by the time I get to upload this.