Touring California’s North Coast wine country, Laetitia’s group stayed at a Little River B and B called Glendeven. It features excellent ocean views, hiking trails, breakfasts, llamas and exotic chickens. It offers excellent bird viewing including an occasional covey of California Quail.
For a place that’s a wee bit of heaven
There’s a great B & B called Glendeven
A prince among inns
With llamas and hens
It’s a place where your spirits will leaven.
Laetitia took a group to Mendocino on California’s North Coast. Once a logging town, it became an artist’s colony in the 1960s. Its picturesque setting atop a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean makes it a choice location as a movie set. Scenes from films, East of Eden and Forever Young, were shot there as were episodes from the TV series, Murder, She Wrote. It’s a great place for walking, sightseeing, photography, shopping, dining, and sampling the local beer and wine.
On the North Coast well known for its vino
Is the quaint artists’ town, Mendocino
Great for crafts and fine art,
Food and clothing that’s smart
Start your day there with a cappuccino.
At dinner after a day of touring in Cuba, a film maker in Laetitia’s tour group who specialized in film remakes of Agatha Christie mysteries talked about his work. To enhance box office appeal his choices for parts in his films were based on celebrity status rather than acting ability. When he allowed that he was having difficulty casting Mrs. Butt for Murder is Announced, someone suggested Kim Kardashian.
A Christie film maker whose passion
Was for roles played by celebs in fashion
Found himself in a rut
As he cast Mrs. Butt
Until someone said, “Try Kim Kardashian.”
In the village of Vinales, Cuba, after a visit to a tobacco farm, a member of Laetitia’s group commented loudly on the apparent irony of a scene in which a group of passing dogs took turns lifting their legs and anointed a boulevard sign that read, “No Pise El Cesped.” The irony was lost on a the local bilingual garlic vendor on a bicycle who told her with a tinge of sardonic humor that despite how the sign’s message appears to an English speaker, it actually translates as “Don’t Walk on the Grass.”
When dogs peed on a lawn sign that read
In Spanish, “No Pise El Cesped,”
An act dubbed as ironic
Quipped a local, sardonic,
“’Don’t Walk on the Grass’ is what it said.”