Angels Near the City

Kitty and Tony Schmitz, who were once our nearby neighbors in Costa Rica are now living in Manhattan Beach, Cal. We stayed a couple of days with them on the next-to-last leg of our journey. Kitty's mom, "Babs", bought this house ages ago and now the area is super exclusive.

Tony is your magnificent Cajun cook, and can whip up a Gumbo like you've never enjoyed!
They invited a bunch of old friends over including Lua and Andy DelCampo, whom we've known since they were little, from Costa Rica, a friend of Tony's from work (as an agricultural inspector for Immigration at the airport) and Nick and Emily Brown (we know Nick's parents also from Costa Rica days).
Later, Barbara Marino showed up after a long drive to join us for dinner. She's sitting next to Lua and me. It was great seeing all these people who we've been out of touch with for so many years.Kitty and Babs offered to take us into LA to see if we could trace Julie's old digs there. We didn't expect to find much after a forty year absence, but we were surprised! Here we're enjoying coffee and doughnuts on the way.We saw some famous landmarks: Julie was delighted to find the theater where she used to sell tickets as a teenager!And even her old Highschool was intact:She's a big girl now. Can't you just imagine her carrying her books to school?An even greater surprise for her was to discover that her old house in LA was still intact! The pretty front lawns have been paved over for parking and the trees gone, but it's the same house.
After Julie had her time of nostalgia, locating her girlfriend's place across the street, etc. we went out to a Mexican Food place for lunch. Right across the street was this pink building with a very cool T-Bird parked in front.On the way back home we wanted to stop by to see the LA Baha'i Center.Inside the Center we toured the theater area and offices and meeting halls and finally the library. We also met a Costa Rican fellow who is Gonzalo Moreno's brother. He's been there working as a maintenance person and handyman/guard for a number of years.