Travelers

COSTA MESA — There was buried treasure in the backyard just waiting to be dug up. And the family knew it. So one day the granddaughter decided to excavate what her grandmother, an escapee from an oppressive Russian tsarist rule, put in the dirt years ago. Turns out it was $57,000 worth of Russian gold rubles. That's just one story Colleen Rivera likes to tell. Witnessing such impressive finds is part of her job as a field manager for the Ohio Valley Gold & Silver Refinery's traveling roadshow.

Whether you're an armchair traveler, or you have the opportunity to visit other places beyond your immediate environment, travel gives us the opportunity to expand our minds and recognize the various ways that others are living and experiencing the world. Mark Twain encapsulated this point when he said, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one's lifetime.

Travelers flying out of John Wayne Airport for Christmas and New Year's Eve are being advised to pack all snow globes and not wrap any presents if they plan to take bags containing them into the plane's cabin, according to JWA Spokeswoman Jenny Wedge. "All carry-on luggage is subject to a search, so you don't want to wrap something that could potentially be unwrapped," she said. Although Thanksgiving is traditionally the busiest time of the year for the airport — with Christmas and New Year's Eve following closely behind — passengers should try to get to the airport at least 90 minutes before their scheduled flights, Wedge said.

Act Two between Corona del Mar High and Beckman takes place Saturday night at 7. The location is the same, Tustin High. The Sea Kings are hoping for a similar result to the first road football game against the Patriots. Much more is at stake this time around. The winner advances to the CIF Southern Section Southern Division championship game and will play against top-seeded Garden Grove. The Argonauts beat Northwood, 35-21, in the other semifinal Friday night. It has been 21 years since the Sea Kings last appeared in a section title game.

Growing up in Costa Mesa, Karli Kuhns was like any other kid. She played soccer and loved hanging out with her younger brother. She attended Ensign Intermediate and Newport Harbor high schools. However, as Kuhns approached adolescence, her attention veered. She talked back to teachers and her grades weren't something she bragged about. In seventh grade, when offered alcohol and marijuana, she tried both. By her freshman year of high school, Kuhn was injecting speed. "I started having seizures from it in my P.E. class," Kuhns said.

CORONA DEL MAR — The referee on the floor said he knew who was going to win the Corona del Mar-Laguna Beach high school rivalry match. Before the girls' volleyball match went to a decisive fifth set, the referee said the side that received at the start went on to win the first four sets. He did not understand why CdM chose to serve in the final set. He forgot about the Sea Kings' home-court edge Tuesday night. After losing the previous set pretty badly, the Sea Kings forgot all about it and regrouped.

A man wanted in connection with a Missouri death has been arrested in Newport Beach, police said Tuesday. Mark Edward Rhodes, 43, was arrested about 4 p.m. Monday in a neighborhood behind Corona del Mar High School off Vista Bonita and Barranca, said Newport Beach Police Sgt. Steve Burdette. Authorities in Carroll County, Mo., have been looking for Rhodes and his ex-wife, Tina Mae Rhodes, 44, since Sept. 8. Police in Missouri found her body Monday in a rural field just outside Carroll County, officials said.

I was transported to Egypt, Italy, India and Bali in two new chick flicks about two pretty women who fall in love with a handsome stranger. They also manage endless costume changes from just one small bag. It's every woman's dream come true... "Cairo Time" is a delicate, bittersweet love story about Juliet, an American who arrives in Cairo to meet with her husband, a U.N. diplomat. He's unable to join her due to a crisis, so asks his friend Tareq (Alexander Siddig) to look after her. Patricia Clarkson gives a beautifully modulated performance as she grows to enjoy her time alone and forms a tender bond with Tareq.

As a child, Anne Belden remembers tagging along to water polo games and practices with her older brothers and older sister. Back then there didn't seem to be any thought of pressure of following in her older siblings' footsteps. She would pile in the car with them to cheer for them during their games. But she wasn't just along for the ride. She also learned about the sport. Somehow she let the game come to her. As the years passed, Belden, the youngest of four, didn't want to be known as, "Baby Belden," or "Little Belden."

Neighbors help neighbors in need. That may be true in Midwestern towns and in American lore, but just an hour south of Los Angeles? For residents of a tight-knit community in Costa Mesa, that maxim came to life one Saturday morning in June. Jeannie Tuxford, a mother of two, had just lost her husband of 20 years to pancreatic cancer. She left her Mesa Verde home and traveled to his hometown near Toronto, where she spread his remains. Tuxford, 50, had left a bare refrigerator, disheveled garden and worn paint on her white picket fence.