Today I biked from Solano Beach along a road that passes through some of the most beautiful landscapes and seascapes in America.  Of course, the trees begged to be photographed… and pelicans and seals. From mid-morning to early afternoon fuzzy fog lay sleepily over everything; but as I rode close to downtown San Diego by the airport, the sun broke through and pushed the haze back out to sea.  What a day!

And what an evening this was… The President’s State of the Union address was one of the best in many years.  It’s still hard, I guess, for some Americans to believe what happened five years ago when this Brilliant African American son of a single mother and an African father whom he never really knew was elected President of the United States.  Beliefs and commitments of citizens to different economic and political ideologies can be managed successfully in a democracy; but bigotry, racism, and ignorance don’t wash out easily from people in whom they have been engrained for a long time. We’ll see in the next few months if this reluctant Congress can get itself together to do the business of government that it was designed to do.

As I listened to his address, I felt fortunate to be a citizen of the United States and glad to have voted with the majority of Americans who elected Barack Obama.

These energetic eucalyptus trees seemed to be getting it on near the Torrey Pines Golf Course.