In Which the Indians Take Back the Missi...

I was hoping the St. Joseph’s Day festivities at San Juan Capistrano would be more local festival than slickly produced event, and luckily it was. To celebrate the return of the swallows to the Mission, I think the town had corralled every school kid from 5 to 18 to be in the ceremonies. You had First Graders dressed as monks, parades of Kindergardeners in sparrow costumes, and...

The Good, The Bad and Richard Nixon

Day Two of our roadtrip was a day of wild extremes, one near disaster, a fast save and a quick sidetrip down a different historical path than the one we’d planned. But that’s the thing about roadtrips. You better plan that something will not go according to plan. We started the day surrounded with the trappings of wealth. First at the Hotel Bel-Air, then at the Getty,...