San Francisco is a colorful and diverse metropolis. The City by the Golden Gate is famed for its multicultural population, steep hills, cable cars, fine dining, theater and Fisherman's Wharf.

One of the city's most attractive communities is the Mission District. It features large, brilliantly-colored murals on outside walls, fences and facades that attract visitors from all over the world.

The wall-painting movement in San Francisco has its roots with Mexico’s great 20th Century muralists, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco. They were famous for creating the unique form of art in their country as historical, social and political commentary.

Guest editor JJMcC, USNR (Retired), Long Beach CA: My Naval Reserve Air Group was called up for active duty during the Korean War. We spent six months on an aircraft carrier in the war zone, then returned to the States.

Because we were required to do two years (sound familiar to you Reservists of today?), we were assigned to various Naval Air Stations to serve out the rest of our time. Mine was at NAS Corpus Christi, on the Atlantic coast just 100 miles south of San Antonio.

If your travel plans take you to the nation’s capital and you would like to be bedded and breakfasted like royalty, consider this classic former foreign embassy. Now one of the city’s best b&b destinations, it’s located at 2224 R Street NW.

Room rates start at about $270, including evening happy hour with free beer and snacks, as well as hot buffet breakfast. For more info, go to www.dcinns.com/embassy.html

If you have your own car or a rental, it’s a five-hour drive from Vegas, 280 miles to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Sixty years ago, when Vegas was a sleepy little town of 100,000, you could've made it in five hours of empty desert.

Now the city and extensive suburbs have more than a million residents, along with several million tourists just about every day. If you begin your Grand Canyon trip from a downtown hotel, it could take an hour just to make your way through endless traffic and on to the highway.