Thanks to everyone for the advice and suggestions. I got it to do exactly what I
wanted. Happy days. Here's my code...note that I drop the camera vertically,
then transition into a smooth arc to rotate 360 degrees around my center point
followed lastly by a smooth arc into a zoom. All while focused just below the
center.

Once you get the hang of the coordinate system, building a spline is the way to
go for smooth animations.

#declare CameraSpline =
    spline {
        natural_spline

        0.0, <0,10,-65>
        0.1, <0,0,-65>
        0.2, <10, -10, -65>
        0.3, <65, -15, 0>
        0.4, <0, -15, +65>
        0.5, <-65, -15, 0>
        0.7, <-10, -15, -65>
        0.8, <0, -15, -45>
        1.0, <0, -5, -25>
       }

  camera{
    location < CameraSpline(clock).x, CameraSpline(clock).y,
CameraSpline(clock).z >
    rotate < 0, 0, 0>
    look_at < 0 , -10 , 0>
        }

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