We spent two weeks with Carmen and family. Here Carmen is receiving a distinguished honor as Vice President Emeriti at Marshall B. Ketchum University from the University President. She was a student there, worked in private practice for a while and was asked by the Dean to consider a position as an instructor. She did and this is how her career turned from an optometrist to an academic career.

Here we are taking a monthly get away weekend to a mountain town called Mazamitla, known as the Alps of Mexico. The main plaza showcases its grand Cathedral and city center.	We stayed at this B&B in the mountains, where the temperatures were about 15 degrees cooler than in Ajijic. It had a hot tub and Netflix. When we were not doing that, we hiked and walked the trails and streets.
The occasion where Carmen was honored was a part of the graduation celebration for about one hundred students becoming Doctors of Optometry. The booklet included a great story of Carmen's achievement.	The entire family was there, plus Voni, Carmen's friend since 4th grade and Dakota's boyfriend, Enrique. That evening, we were asked to join in a fine-dining event with the president, dean, and chairman of the board.
Dakota was home for the weekend. She will be a senior at UC-San Diego this fall. Tobie will be graduating from cosmetology this year. They are ready for a fun night out on the town.	Rather than a mini-vacation. Carmen took us on three day trips Here we toured the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, one of the premier museums with over 150,000 works of art and the Ressler Family Wing.
Next day, we toured the Getty Villa Museum overlooking the Malibu coast. It features 44,000 Greece and Roman antiquities dating from 6,500 BC to 400 AD. The gardens were equally impressive.	On the way home, we stopped at Santa Monica Pier. It is the last remaining pier on the west coast to house an amusement park. We ate dinner and Larry got his first Raw-Oysters on the half shell in years.
Santa Monica Pier is also the iconic ceremonial "End of the Trail" of Route 66. The road was built one hundred years ago and serves as a direct route from Chicago and everything in between.	On the way home, Carmen drove through Venice, built in the early 1900s as the Venice of America. Today it is made up of six canals with walking paths and the most expensive homes.
Day three, we drove west to the coast and followed the Pacific Coast Highway to San Pedro. Here is the Roessler Point overlooking the ocean. When we were in France, we learned that the spelling of  Ressler used to have an "o" in it.	Along the route, the skies were clear as a bell. We saw the entire length of the Catalina Island off to the west. As we turned toward Long Beach we saw these two ocean liners leaving port.
We spent time at the Point Vincente Interpretive Center and Point Vicente Light House. In fact, it was so beautiful, we went to Trader Joes and got food for an awesome picnic overlooking the ocean	Along the route, we stopped at the Korean Bell of Friendship donated to LA by the Republic of Korea to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the USA. The bell weighs 17 tons, is 12' high and 7-1/2 in diameter.
We ran into a disturbing site--the "Sunken City" caused by a massive landslide that dumped over six acres of homes, roads, sidewalks into the sea in 1929. What is left is exposed graffiti covered foundations and roads.	The Los Angeles and Long Beach Sea Ports are next to one another because of a large, natural, deep-water bay that has an easily accessible break. They collectively are the largest seaports in the USA.
Here we toured the Peterson Auto Museum, one of the largest car museums in the country. They have 120 cars on display in their public museum and an additional 400 in “the Vault”, which are rare, historic, and special collections.	The oldest car was a 1902 Cadillac and one of the first made. Ford cornered the market for decades with its Model As and Model Ds, that came in any color you wanted as long as it was black.
After viewing hundreds of classics, European coach built cars, Hollywood legends, retro and cutting edge hyper cars, Glorine took a fancy to a 1957 Fiat 500 made in Italy and only nine foot long.	Carmen dropped us off at the station, which took us to San Diego. From there, we took an Uber to Tijuana and flew back to Ajijic. We had a wonderful experience with Carmen and family and can't wait for the next one.