Southern California Guide

By Valerie Summers An out of the ordinary family adventure began with a pleasant drive through the rolling hills and villages of north San Diego County.  I had visited this destination more than 25 years ago when it was called Lion Country Safari and was eager to check out the changes which had taken place […]

by Valerie Summers More than a century ago, real estate baron Henry Huntington brought super-surfer George Freeth from the surfers’ paradise in Hawaii to the Southern California seaside resort of Redondo Beach.  This exciting new addition to the fledgling beach town proved only the beginning of the diverse community which it has become. Today, vacationers […]

In the charming, rustic open-air Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga, I was deeply touched by the story of the aftermath of the 1988 crash of Pam Am 103 over Lockerbie Scotland, the first of what would become many senseless acts of terrorism.  Inspired by a true story, The Women of Lockerbie, by Deborah Brevoort, […]

Attending a performance of the Pageant of the Masters each summer at the Irvine Bowl in the picturesque town of Laguna Beach is a tradition I always look forward to.  Every year I am captivated by the astoundingly accurate recreations of life-sized great works of art which magically appear on stage accompanied by live orchestral […]

One of my favorite summer outings is enjoying theatrical entertainment in the rustic Will Geer Theatre Botanicum in Topanga.  Over the weekend I viewed a fascinating play about the famous opera diva Maria Callas in Master Class which I enjoyed at the Los Angeles Music Center more than a decade ago.  This was more a […]