CALIFORNIA SOUTH

Day 12 Nov 18
I continued south of the Monterey area on Highway 1 but turned back as the road was closed south of Big Sur because of a landslide. I drove back to Highway 101 to continue south. 

CALIFORNIA SOUTH (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Luis Obispo)

CORRECTIONS
CALIFORNIA SOUTH
Railway, Metro, Funiculars, Cable Cars: Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. Should be in California Interior
Urban Legends: San Diego Seaport Village – is in Avalon in the Channel Islands, not San Diego.

CALIFORNIA INTERIOR
Bizzarium: International Banana Museum, Mecca. Permanently closed.

Bubblegum Alley, San Luis Obispo. In a narrow alley on the main street of downtown San Luis Obispo, is this 60 m-long passage lined with brick completely covered with gum up to about 10 feet. The old gum has gone black but lost of fresh gum and wrappers cover the lower 7 feet.  Bizzarium
I had a shower at the SLO swimming pool ($4.75).
ON SLO parking lot.

Day 13 Tue Nov 19
Highway 101 is a major highway but inland. After missing Big Sur, I wanted to drive near the coast so deviated and ended up on a good road but zero traffic and never approached the beach. I ended up driving ~40 miles more than necessary. Oh well.

Santa Barbara Botanical Garden. California indigenous plants. The best was the redwood grove.
Ganna Walska Lotusland, Montecito. A great collection of succulents. Google Maps had the entrance wrong and I drove all over looking for it. $20, $17 redyced
The drive to both of these was on a lot of narrow winding roads.

Channel Islands Maritime Museum, Oxnard. A huge collection of model ships with a great history – Chinese, Korean turtle ship, and all the famous ships prior to steam. Also a large collection of art. $10, $5 reduced. I didn’t see a person anywhere but the door was locked when I left so I didn’t pay.
U.S. Navy Seabee Museum, Port Hueneme. The Seebees were the construction wing of the US Navy responsible for building all facilities, airports etc. A good museum in a lovely new building but not of much interest. Free 

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, Simi Valley. About 30 miles north of LA, it sits on top of a big hill in a remote location (and a long drive out of my way). I was curious about presidential libraries, but they weren’t worth the price. These are glorified tributes with little negativity. Reading Wikipedia would be much more worthwhile. $16, $13 reduced.

LOS ANGELES
Chemosphere is a modernist house designed by John Lautner in 1960. The Encyclopædia Britannica once called “the most modern home built in the world”,^[1] is admired both for the ingenuity of its solution to the problem of the site and its unique octagonal design.
The building stands just off Mulholland Drive. It is a one-story octagon with around 2,200 square feet (200 m²) of living space perched atop a 5-foot-wide (1.5 m) concrete column nearly 30 feet (9 m) high. This innovative design was Lautner’s solution to a site that, with a slope of 45 degrees, was thought to be practically unbuildable. Because of a concrete pedestal, almost 20 feet (6 m) in diameter, buried under the earth and supporting the column, the house has survived earthquakes and heavy rains. The house is reached by a funicular.
Chemosphere is bisected by a central exposed brick wall with a fireplace, abutted by subdued seating, in the middle.
Despite his limited means, Leonard Malin was determined to live there. Malin had US$30,000 with a cost of US$140,000 but was subsidized partly by barter with two sponsoring companies, the Southern California Gas Company and the Chem Seal Corporation. Chem Seal provided the experimental coatings and resins to put the house together and inspired the name Chemosphere. In 1976, the house’s second owner, Dr. Richard Kuhn, was stabbed to death there in a robbery by his lover and another man. By 1997, the interior was run down; for over 10 years it had been rented out and used for parties. It proved difficult to sell and sat on the market for most of its time as a rental property.
Since 1998, it has been the Los Angeles home of Benedikt Taschen, of the German publishing house Taschen, who has had the house restored; the only current problem with the residence is the relatively high cost of maintenance. During restoration, the architects added details that were unavailable 40 years before. The gas company tile was replaced by random-cut slate, and replaced the original thick-framed windows with frameless glass.
The drive here was insane – very narrow, steep, overhanging trees, lots of tight turns and a lot of traffic. The final road is a dead end so I parked a few hundred metres below and walked up.

The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Built in 1926-27, it was named after Theodore Roosevelt and financed by a group that included Louis B. Mayer, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Sid Grauman at a cost of $2.5 million ($43.9 million today) to complete. In 1985, a $35 million renovation. The million-dollar mural at the bottom of the hotel’s Tropicana Pool was painted by David Hockney in 1987. In 2005, a $30 million renovation and in 2015, a $25 million renovation. The 12-story hotel has 300 guest rooms including 63 suites with a Spanish Colonial Revival Style interior, with leather sofas, wrought-iron chandeliers and colourful tiled fountains.
The Gable-Lombard penthouse, a 3,200 square-foot duplex with an outdoor deck is named for Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, who used to stay in the room for five dollars a night. The Marilyn Monroe suite lived at the hotel for two years early in her career.
The hotel has eight restaurants, bars and lounges. 25 Degrees is a hamburger restaurant located just off the hotel lobby.
The first Academy Awards ceremony was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on May 16, 1929, inside the Blossom Ballroom.
Hollywood Forever Cemetery is a full-service cemetery, funeral home, crematory, and cultural events center with live music and summer movie screenings. It was founded in 1899. Individuals interred in the cemetery include many prominent people from the entertainment industry, as well as people who played vital roles in shaping Los Angeles.
Jules Roth, the owner, did not maintain the cemetery and embezzled $9 million from the endowment care fund—meant to care for the cemetery in perpetuity. It was purchased in a bankruptcy proceeding in 1998 for $375,000 and they renamed the cemetery “Hollywood Forever” and invested millions in a complete restoration. In 2013, the owners admitted guilt in a $600 million Ponzi scheme involving their control of National Prearranged Services, Inc. and both were sent to prison. It is a well-kept cemetery but I didn’t see any famous people.
Pacific Design Center is a 1,600,000-square-foot multi-use facility. One of the buildings is often described as the Blue Whale because of its large size relative to surrounding buildings and its brilliant blue glass cladding.
It is the West Coast’s top decorating and furniture market, with 100 showrooms which display and sell 2,200 interior product lines to professional interior designers, architects, facility managers, decorators and dealers. public and private spaces. It hosts many screenings, exhibitions, lectures, meetings, special events and receptions for the design, entertainment and arts communities. The annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party has traditionally been held at the PDC. The party is one of the longest-running and best known of the post-Oscar parties as well as being a multimillion-dollar fundraiser for the foundation.
It opened in 1975, with the 750,000-square-foot (70,000 m²) Center Blue, the 450,000 square feet Center Green opened in 1988 and Center Red, opened in 2013 with an additional 400,000 square feet. 

I ate in front of here – there was a long diagonal parking spot in front.
Chateau Marmont was completed in 1929 and is known as both a long- and short-term residence for celebrities as well as a home for New Yorkers in Hollywood. The hotel has 63 rooms, suites, cottages, and bungalows. Originally an apartment building and in the 30s. Designed and constructed to be earthquake-proof, Chateau Marmont survived major earthquakes in 1933, 1952, 1971, 1987, and 1994. Nine Spanish cottages and a swimming pool were built in the 1930s.
The Grove Shopping Mall. A luxury mall with all the big names surrounding a large central park.
Los Angeles Farmers Market. This is mostly eateries with only one produce stand, two meat stands, a large deli with wine and some small specialty shops.
Hayden Tract is a neighbourhood in Culver City that was first developed in the 1940s as an industrial area but starting in the late 1980s with one or two buildings at a time gradually redeveloped into a place with a collection of technology companies today. |
The Box – 1994 is an addition to an existing warehouse converted into an office building with an elevated conference room.
3535 Hayden – 1997. The headquarters for a media company has a steel frame that was built over a wood frame warehouse. The wood columns and trusses remain as artifacts and only support themselves in the new structure.

Stealth—2001. Contaminated soil was removed from a sunken garden, creating a 300-foot-long office building with three sides at the north end and four sides at the south end.
Samitaur Tower – 2010. At the intersection of Hayden Ave. and National Blvd, it marks the entrance to the development. Visible from a busy street and the light rail line, it provides a place to project images on the conical forms.
Vespertine – 2016. Horizontal and vertical steel plates frame the glass for this restaurant and twist along the height. It has 3 levels and a roof deck with a ground-level garden.
Binoculars Building is the common name of Google’s Venice campus. It was built in 1991 for the advertising agency Chiat/Day and designed by architect Frank Gehry. The building has a prominent public artwork entitled Giant Binoculars (1991), on its street-facing façade. The Giant Binoculars sculpture covers both a car and pedestrian entrance; 

I had three weird things happen as everything turned itself off – Google Maps turned to Satellite view and I couldn’t find how to change it, I had no power in my camper (after checking the batteries, screwing around with the control fuse panel, and looking for other circuit breakers like in my old camper (there are none), the battery disconnect had been clicked!!), and my phone had no data and airplane mode was on (I have never used airplane mode). 
ON on the street in Santa Monica near Ocean Blvd.

Day 13 Wed Nov 20
Getty Villa. This was built to replicate a Roman villa buried by Mt Vesuvius. The main museum is 2-story and has a great garden with a long pool. I enjoyed this much more than the Getty Centre. The exhibit on Thrace (and Thracen gold) was outstanding. I saw the entire museum and then went on a tour that visited only this portion of the museum. Several types of tours run continuously throughout the day. Get free tickets with a reservation online. Free but parking was $25!
Eames House is a landmark of mid-20th-century modern architecture located at 203 North Chautauqua Boulevard in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood of Los Angeles. It was constructed in 1949, by husband-and-wife design pioneers Charles and Ray Eames, to serve as their home and studio. They never moved out (Charles died in August 1978 and Ray died in August 1988). Charles’s daughter, Lucia Eames, inherited the home and created the non-profit organization, the Eames Foundation, in 2004.
Initially designed as a raised steel and glass box projecting out of the slope but the new

design featured a residence and a studio building tucked into the landscape’s slope, with an 8-foot by 200-foot (60 m) long concrete retaining wall. The lower level of the residence features a living room with an alcove, a hall with closets and a spiral staircase, a kitchen, and utility space. The upper level holds two bedrooms and overlooks the double-height living room in a mezzanine fashion.
The Eameses’ collection includes, among others: Isamu Noguchi floor lamps, folk and Abstract Expressionist art, Japanese kokeshi dolls, Chinese lacquered pillows, Native American baskets, Thonet chairs, and numerous Eames furniture designs.
The house could not be visited – it was screened off and appeared to be under renovation.
J. Paul Getty Museum (Getty Center). Park, pay for it upstairs and take a long tram to the museum. It has 4 main 3-storey buildings featuring mainly art before 1920. I didn’t enjoy it much. The exhibit on holograms and how they are done was outstanding. Get free tickets with a reservation online. Parking $25
The Beverly Hills Hotel. Located on Sunset Boulevard, it is one of the world’s best-known hotels, it is closely associated with Hollywood film stars, rock stars, and celebrities. The hotel has 210 guest rooms and suites and 23 bungalows and the exterior bears the hotel’s signature pink and green colors.
Built in 1912 in the Mediterranean Revival style, the Polo Lounge is considered to be one of the premier dining spots in Los Angeles, hosting entertainers. A complete reno occurred between 1992 and 1995 costing $100–125 million. Since 1996, it has been run as part of the Dorchester Collection owned by the Sultan of Brunei.
The song “Hotel California” by the Eagles is slightly based on the folklore behind the hotel. The cover of the band’s album of the same name features a photo of the hotel itself.
By 1914, Hollywood directors, actors, and actresses, such as Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, Buster Keaton, Rudolph Valentino, and Will Rogers, had purchased homes in the area, “transforming bean fields surrounding The Beverly Hills Hotel into prime real estate”.^[8] The city of Beverly Hills was established in 1914. In 1942, Howard Hughes bought up half a dozen of the bungalows and lived there on several occasions throughout the decades. The hotel accommodated his eccentricities, including his request for “roast beef sandwiches delivered to a nook in a tree”. Elizabeth Taylor honeymooned in the bungalows out back – six times.
A boycott of the hotel began in April 2014, when the Sultan of Brunei, part owner of the hotel, began changing Brunei’s complex legal system to include aspects of Sharia law, and in particular, codifying the persecution of homosexuals.

Even before its completion, the Ennis House was marked by structural instability. Concrete blocks had cracked and lower sections of the walls buckled under tension. The use of decomposed granite from the site to colour the textile blocks introduced natural impurities to the concrete mix, and combined with air pollution caused premature decay. Attempts to apply a protective coating caused additional problems. More damage occurred due to the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Restoration work was completed in 2007 for US$6.4 million. It remains closed to public visitors.
Because of my difficulties driving my camper up these steep winding roads, I parked well below and walked .6 miles up the hill including a long steep stairway. I passed through a high-end neighbourhood of huge homes built onto a cliff. The hillside under the house is covered with trees now.
ON on the street below Ennis House.

Day 14 Thur Nov 21
Lovell House is an International style modernist residence designed and built by Richard Neutra between 1927 and 1929. The home was built for the physician and naturopath Philip Lovell. It is considered a major monument in architectural history with the first steel frame house in the United States, and also an early example of the use of gunite (sprayed-on concrete).
Philip Lovell was enchanted with the house and praised his architect publicly. In 2021, art dealers Iwan and Manuela Wirth purchased the property for $8.75 million, It reflects Neutra’s interest in industrial production, and this is most evident in the repetitive use of factory-made window assemblies. The interior reflects Neutra’s interest in Cubism, transparency, and hygiene with “minimal” detailing. The Historic American Buildings Survey described the Lovell House as “a prime example of residential architecture where technology creates the environment.”
I walked .4 mile up to this house. The grade wasn’t bad. The other end of the house is all that can be seen from there. I would never have been able to turn around and the hill was quite steep.

Hollyhock House was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright originally as a residence for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall (built, 1919–1921). The house is now the centrepiece of the city’s Barnsdall Art Park. It is noted for developing an influential architectural aesthetic, which combines indoor and outdoor living spaces. In July 2019, along with seven other buildings designed by Wright in the 20th century, it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. Wright was fired from the project in 1921 due to cost overages.
Disillusioned by the costs of construction and maintenance, Barnsdall donated the house to the city of Los Angeles in 1927 and used by the California Art Club for its headquarters until 1942 when the house was almost demolished. The house has been used as an art gallery over the years. In 1974, it was restored, then damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, restored again, and restored again from 2005-15
.

It has an “introverted” exterior with windows that seem hidden from the yard. A central courtyard with one side open, and a complex system of split levels, steps and roof terraces surround the courtyard. Exterior walls are tilted back 85 degrees (which helps provide a “Mayan” appearance, leaded art glass windows, a grand fireplace and a moat. The hollyhock (Aline Barnsdall’s favourite flower) is a central theme to the house.
Like many houses designed by Wright, Hollyhock House proved to be better as an aesthetic work than as a livable dwelling. Water tended to flow over the central lawn and into the living room, and the flat roof terraces were conceived without an understanding of Los Angeles’s rains. The cantilevered concrete also did not stand up well to the area’s earthquakes.
The house cannot be visited. The California Municipal Art Gallery and the Barnsdall Theatre were nearby.
Forest Lawn Art Museum, Glendale. Religious art in a cemetery. Not so interesting but free.
Alex Theatre, Glendale is a landmark currently owned by the city of Glendale and operated by SAS. The theatre’s capacity is 1,400. The unique interior has distinct neo-classic Greek and Egyptian architectural elements. A long walkway and courtyard separating the ticket booth from the lobby was inspired after the famous Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. It has a 100-foot-tall (30 m) art-deco column with neon lights, topped by a spiked, neon sphere that gives it a starburst appearance. A neon, angled marquee emblazoned the theatre’s new name, the Alex, which was shortened to fit the larger letters.
The Alexander officially opened in 1925 and featured vaudeville performances, plays and silent movies on a single screen. A huge Wurlitzer pipe organ was installed. Located only a few miles from Walt Disney’s Hyperion studio, the theatre was Disney’s favourite place to preview his cartoons to see how they would play to audiences. Several movies had their preview screening at The Alex, inviting celebrities such as Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Elizabeth Taylor for National Velvet and Bing Crosby for Going My Way (both 1944). Starting in the 1950s, the Alex showed blockbuster films such as Ben-Hur (1959) and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). The Alex underwent an extensive renovation in 1993, which restored much of the original wall-painting and decorations, as well as the neon spire added by S. Charles Lee.

The Alex Theatre Performing Arts and Entertainment Center has been the centrepiece of Glendale’s arts, culture and community events since it originally opened. The theatre’s diverse schedule boasts roughly 250 events per year and attracts more than 100,000 patrons annually. Programs range from classical and contemporary concerts, theatre, dance, comedy, fundraising and special events as well as TV and film productions and industry-related award presentations.
The Alex was the venue in 2017 for the season 9 finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race. And in the summer of 2019, the NBC comedy competition series Bring the Funny used the Alex Theatre as the venue for the final two episodes of its first season. Resident companies include the Alex Film Society, Glendale Youth Orchestra, Musical Theatre Guild, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
The American at Brand, Glendale. Both The Americana at Brand and The Grove are organized upon the idea of a city center—with a mix of architectural styles, building heights and materials used, vast open spaces at each project’s center and brick factory facades of the industrial era, with its massive elevator shaft with exposed steel beams. It has 100 condominiums and 242 luxury apartments. It intends to appear to be a public space but is private. The two-acre park in the center of the complex is entirely public property. It opened in 2008.

PASADENA
Pasadena was a welcome change after LA – very little traffic, wide streets, and easy parking.
Pasadena History Museum. Costumes, posters and photos of movies shot in Pasadena. Free
Gamble House. Wow don’t miss this, the winter home of the Proctor & Gamble – Gamble family (they were from Cinncinati). There is not a nail in the gorgeous house, 17 kinds of wood, incredible wood joinery, wood walls, oak floor in chevron pattern, Tiffany lovely stained glass lamps, great stained glass, and matching custom-built furniture. The docent was very thorough. $20, $17 reduced
Norton Simon Museum. Earlier European/religious art and Asian art (think lots of Buddhas and Vishnus) are not my favourites. Great collection of Rhodin sculptures in the grounds. $20, $17 reduced.
Constance Perkins House (1540 Poppy Pock Drive) was designed by Richard Neutra in Pasadena from 1952 to 1955. In 1947, Constance Perkins started working as a professor of Art History at Occidental College. The tiny house was constructed of inexpensive materials- wood, plaster, and glass; a spiderleg beam extended the space by projecting out into a small reflecting pool that meanders through one of the glass walls of the house…He also measured the physical dimensions of his clients. Constance Perkins was a small woman, so he scaled the house to her.” It was formatted especially for Perkins and her budget. The house consists of a free-form pool extending into the living room. The final cost of the house came to about $17,166, which was over her original budget, nonetheless, she was happy with the results.
Perkins’ home is influential in modern architecture because of its design and the type of family that would occupy such a space. Perkins herself was a single working woman who had chosen a career over a family. She has requested no main bedroom but would prefer to sleep in her workspace. She wanted a space “as a domestic environment in which individual creativity and work, rather than family and leisure activities were the central concept.”
Perkins died in March 1991 and left the house to the Huntington Library and Art Gallery where she volunteered in the last years of her life. The house is now privately owned.
I walked .3 miles to the house but the road was not that steep.

Huntington Library. The Huntington is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington and Arabella Huntington. In addition to the library, the institution houses an extensive art collection with a focus on 18th and 19th century European art and 17th to mid-20th century American art. The property also has approximately 120 acres (49 ha) of specialized botanical landscaped gardens, including the “Japanese Garden”, the “Desert Garden”, and the “Chinese Garden”.

Huntington was born in 1850, in Oneonta, New York, and was the nephew and heir of Collis P. Huntington (1821–1900), one of the famous “Big Four” railroad tycoons of nineteenth-century California history. He spearheaded urban and regional transportation to link far-flung communities, supporting the growth of those communities as well as promoting commerce, recreation and tourism. Before he died in 1927, Huntington amassed “far and away the greatest group of eighteenth-century British portraits ever assembled by any one man.

Formerly the residence of Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and his wife, Arabella Huntington (1850–1924), the Huntington Art Gallery opened in 1928.
With an endowment of more than $400 million (and half a billion dollars raised between 2001 and 2013), Huntington is among the wealthiest cultural institutions in the United States. Each year some 1,700 scholars conduct research there, and 600,000 people visit. The library building was designed in 1920. The library contains a substantial collection of rare books and manuscripts, concentrated in the fields of British and American history, literature, art, and the history of science. Spanning from the 11th century to the present, the library’s holdings contain 7 million manuscript items, over 400,000 rare books, and over a million photographs, prints, and other ephemera. Highlights include one of eleven vellum copies of the Gutenberg Bible known to exist, the Ellesmere manuscript of Chaucer (ca. 1410), and letters and manuscripts by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln.^[8] It is the only library in the world with the first two quartos of Hamlet; it holds the manuscript of Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, Isaac Newton’s personal copy of his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica with annotations in Newton’s hand, the first seven drafts of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, John James Audubon’s Birds of America, and first editions and manuscripts from authors such as Charles Bukowski, Jack London, Alexander Pope, William Blake, Mark Twain, and William Wordsworth.
Researchers may use the Library’s reading rooms to consult the collection with 150 grants to scholars in the fields of history, literature, art, and the history of science, medicine, and technology. Dead Sea Scrolls consists of 3,000 photographs of all the original scrolls.
The European collection, consisting largely of 18th- and 19th-century British & French paintings, sculptures and decorative arts, is housed in The Huntington Art Gallery, the original Huntington residence. American art from the 17th to the mid-20th century. As of 2014, the collection numbers some 12,000 works, ninety percent of them drawings, photographs and prints.

Los Angeles Police Museum. Uniforms, guns and two vignettes: SLA and Patty Hearst, and a robbery at a Bank of America. $10, $9 reduced and she gave it to me for student price $7!
Lummis Home – El Alisal is a Rustic American Craftsman stone house built by Charles Fletcher Lummis in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Located on the edge of Arroyo Seco, the house’s name means “alder grove” in Spanish.
The 4,000-square-foot home (370 m²) took 13 years to build. The exhibition hall has a concrete floor so that after a party that might include artists, writers and musicians, it could easily be cleaned with a bucket of water. Notable people who stayed in his guest houses included Clarence Darrow, Will Rogers, John Philip Sousa and John Muir. In 1940 the Arroyo Seco Parkway, the first freeway, was built between the house and the newly constructed flood control channel in the arroyo.
The Lummis House is operated by the city of Los Angeles as a historic house museum. The exterior of the house is built of river rock and originally contained a stone tower, but that was later demolished. The interior contains some of Lummis’s collection of artifacts, as well as copies of many of his books.
Heritage Square Museum is a living history and open-air architecture museum that shows the story of development in Southern California through historical architectural examples from 1850 to 1950. Eight historic buildings, a vintage train car and a trolley car, were moved to the Heritage Square location between 1969 and 2005.
ON at the end of the street of Heritage Square.

Day 15 Fri Nov 22
I was off before 6 am to find a parking area near downtown. 
Neutra Office Building is a 4,800-square-foot office building owned and designed by Modernist architect Richard Neutra in 1950. It served as the studio and office for Neutra’s architecture practice from 1950 until Neutra died in 1970. It has custom strip lighting, acoustic tiles, exposed ducting, operable louvres, and blue Aklo glass
In 1929, Neutra became famous for Lovell House.
It was in this building that Neutra designed many of his landmark buildings, including the U.S. Embassy in Karachi, Pakistan, the Los Angeles Hall of Records, the Gettysburg Cyclorama Building, the Orange County Courthouse, and the Huntington Beach Public Library. Dion Neutra continued the practice at the site until the 1990s. In 2006, it was listed for sale asking $3,500,000 but was not sold in 2008.
This was underwhelming – famous for who built and worked in but just ok up front.

I parked for free about a block from the cathedral along with some long-stay vehicles. Unfortunately I was in the shade all day.
Union Station. A wonderful Spanish colonial building with painted coffered ceilings, tiled walls, big comfy chairs and Mexican-style floors.
Los Angeles City Hall
Bradbury Building. Built in 1893, it is a narrow 5-story office building. Great wrought iron banisters and stairs, brick walls and a skylight.

Japanese American National Museum. The history of Japanese immigration and the terrible relocation of all Japanese to 10 concentration camps. About 120,000 were relocated losing all their property and possessions. 16,000 served in the US Army in WWII. $15, $9 reduced
Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. A spectacular exhibit by Olafur Eliasson with structural mirrors and kaleidoscopic views. The mechanical design maker was powered by the amount of sun outside. The whirling objects produced by cameras, light beams and hanging objects was amazing. The intertwining rings that float in the air on the second floor were neat. Apparently he has a team of 135 engineers, physicists and many others working on his projects. Free
The Mayan Theater is a landmark former movie palace and current nightclub and music venue. It opened in August 1927 as a performance arts theatre specializing in musical comedy. From 1971 to 1989, the theatre was owned by pornographic filmmaker Carlos Tobalina. In the 1980s, the theatre showed pornographic films. The theatre has been a location in many films, In 1990, the Mayan Theater, with most of its lavish ornament intact, became a nightclub and music venue. It is designated as a Historic Cultural Monument.
The façade of the Mayan Theater includes stylized pre-Columbian patterns and figures designed by sculptor Francisco Cornejo. The well-preserved lobby is called “The Hall of Feathered Serpents,” the auditorium includes a chandelier based on the Aztec calendar stone, and the original fire curtain includes images of Mayan jungles and temples.

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. A huge modern reinforced concrete building. Inside the 4 sets of pews surround the altar. Huge murals on the side have saints and citizens. The Ways of the Cross are lovely mosaics.
Watts Towers. A masterpiece of monumental sculpture, the Watts Towers are the kaleidoscopic product of an Italian immigrant’s decades-long effort. Born in 1879, the Towers’ creator, Sabato Rodia, came to the United States at age 15 to work in the Pennsylvania coal mines. Known as Simon or Sam, he lived in Seattle and Oakland, California, and then left to become a day labourer in Long Beach, California. Purchasing a bungalow in the city of Watts shortly before it became part of L.A., Rodia began to build on his property, single-handedly and single-mindedly. He started in 1921 and finished most of the Towers’ 17 interconnected structures by the mid-1950s. Dominating the triangular walled compound in Watts are three skeletal towers suggesting masts on a ship; the tallest is 99.5 feet high. Other structures within are known as the Boat, the Wedding Cake, and the Gazebo.
They were being renovated with a fence around them. It was a long drive through the Watts neighbourhood of LA. It was a difficult turnaround for my truck and camper.

The Theme Building is at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Constructed near the beginning of the Space Age, the building is an example of how aeronautics and pop culture, design and architecture came together in Los Angeles. The distinctive white building resembles a flying saucer that has landed on its four legs. The appearance of the building’s signature crossed arches as homogeneous structures is a design illusion, created by topping four steel-reinforced concrete legs extending approximately 15 feet above the ground with hollow stucco-covered steel trusses. To counteract earthquake movements, the Theme Building was retrofitted in 2010 with a tuned mass damper without changing its outward appearance.

A $4 million renovation, with retro-futuristic interior and electric lighting designed by Walt Disney Imagineering, was completed before the Encounter Restaurant opened in 1997. Visitors could take an elevator up to the Observation Level to get a 360-degree view of arriving and departing planes. Also a $12.3 million restoration in 2010, The Encounter Restaurant closed in December 2013 as travellers had to have a possibly lengthy security checkpoint or leave after being screened and have to go through security again upon returning. The observation level was closed permanently in September 2018.
Del Amo Fashion Centre. A trendy mall with great design including a dining area in an outdoor garden.
The camper had been parked in complete shade all day and the batteries were the lowest I have seen at 9.1 volts. I had charged my computer and phone and discharged the batteries further. Nothing in the camper worked. 
ON at a business near the mall.

Day 16 Sat Nov 23
The day was completely overcast and my batteries gained about one volt all day. I turned off the fridge (the biggest draw).
South Coast Botanic Garden, Verdes Peninsula. Southern California plants and trees, Surprisingly there were many flowering trees.
Wayfarers Chapel, Rancho Palos Verdes. (The Glass Church) is a chapel designed by Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright) at a cost of $25,000 on a bluff above the Pacific Ocean. Affiliated with the Swedenborgian Church of North America, it served as a memorial to the 18th-century scientist and theosopher Emanuel Swedenborg. Originally constructed in 1949, the chapel was dismantled in 2024 and carefully stored due to extreme earth movement that made the site no longer suitable.
The 100-seat church had a tower added. The visitor’s centre was lost in a landslide during the 1960s. Because of its scenic location, the church is popular for weddings. In 1999, the chapel hosted 800 weddings.
By April 2024, panes of glass in the chapel had broken, the foundation suffered significant damage, and walkways around the site were cracked and jagged. As with many of Wright’s buildings, the chapel features geometric designs and incorporates the natural landscape into the design to allow the surrounding landscape to define the sacred space. The highway was a mess of heaves and slumps. Bicycles were forbidden on this section of road. I would think the highway will need to be rerouted as there seems little point in repairing it. 
Long Beach Main Post Office. An Art Deco and PWA Moderne style building opened in 1934. Built using large masonry blocks with terra cotta sheathing. The structure’s most prominent feature is the central tower rising four-and-a-half stories from the street level. The Moderne style of Art Deco architecture was prevalent as Long Beach was rebuilt after the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. The structure has been in continuous operation as a post office since 1934. Architectural Delight.

Newland House Museum, Huntington Beach. Built in 1898, this small white farmhouse (with a corner “watchtower) is well restored inside with painted wood wainscotting and lots of period objects and furniture. Open only on the 1st and 3rd weekends.
ON Viewpoint Wayside on I-5 about 45 miles north of San Diego.

Day 17 Sun Nov 24
SAN DIEGO/CHULA VISTA
La Valencia Hotel, La Joya was built in the 1920s in a Spanish colonial revival style. It is known for its views of La Jolla Cove, and its historic associations with early 20th-century Hollywood glamour.
It began as an apartment hotel, Its rose-coloured exteriors led to its becoming known as “The Pink Lady of La Jolla”. Throughout its early years—it opened just a few years before the Great Depression, and survived it—the hotel was known for its drawing “locals and Hollywood stars alike” (including Gregory Peck), and its Whaling Bar, which operated from 1945 to 2013 (became La Rue, its restaurant), drew writers, including Raymond Chandler, Theodor Geisel, Norman Mailer, and Gore Vidal. Losing its space to the onsite restaurant, La Rue, in 2013, reports had appeared as of May 2021 indicating the return of The Whaling Bar to its original space in La Valencia. La Valencia was renovated in 2014. In 2020 it has 114 rooms and suites. and three onsite restaurants (The Med, La Sala, and Café La Rue). It is considered a 4-star hotel.
Cabrillo National Monument. At the southern tip of the Point Loma Peninsula, it commemorates the landing of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo at San Diego Bay in 1542, the first time a European expedition set foot on the West Coast of the United States. There are views of San Diego’s harbour and skyline, Coronado and Naval Air Station North Island, and on clear days, a wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean, Tijuana, and Mexico’s Coronado Islands.
The 1855 Old Point Loma Lighthouse is the highest point in the park but was closed in 1891, and the New Point Loma Lighthouse opened at a lower elevation, as fog and low clouds often obscured the light at its location 129 meters (422 feet) above sea level. The old lighthouse is now a museum. It has a statue of Cabrillo (given by the government of Portugal as Cabrillo was Portuguese but working for Spain, replaced by a limestone statue in 1988), coastal artillery batteries and a museum. Trails skirt the coast and go to great tide pools. From December through March, migrating gray whales can be seen off the coast.
I drove 12 miles to an RV dealer but it didn’t have parts or service and then returned to seeing sites.
Unconditional Surrender Statue. On the water in front of the Midway aircraft carrier is this great statue of a sailor kissing a woman bent over and holding a bunch of roses. It resembles an iconic 1945 photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt, V–J day in Times Square. The first in the series was installed temporarily in Sarasota and then was moved to San Diego, and New York City. Other copies have been installed in Hamilton, New Jersey; Pearl Harbor, Normandy, France, Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy, Portsmouth UK and Key West.
Originally of plastic and styrofoam construction, this one is bronze.

Whaley House Museum. Built in 1859 as the Whaley family farmhouse, it was used as a storeroom, school, courthouse, store and theatre (the last three are recreated in the house). $14 reduced.
Spruce Street Suspension Bridge. Built in 1912 over an arroyo, it is cable-stayed with a pier on each end.
I then drove to Balboa Park to see more museums (in 2007 I saw the Museum of Art and the Photography Museum).
Timken Museum of Art. Sculpture in the 1900s and a jewelry collection. Free
San Diego History Center. A nice museum about the history of San Diego. I found the exhibit on the relationship between Hawaii and cattle ranching interesting. Free
Mingei International Museum. An exhibit on indigo from blue jeans to rugs. $15, $10 reduced.
Museum of Contemporary Art. A one-woman show with architectural constructions using material, plastic to demonstrate marine debris and climate change. Free
San Diego Natural History Museum. A big museum with a little bit of everything. Not worth the price – NH museums are more for children. $24, $20 reduced.
Museum of Photographic Arts. Featured a competition. I only enjoyed one photographer. This is my second visit to this museum. Free
San Diego Model Railroad Museum. The largest model railway in the world.
ON Balboa Park parking lot, my second time staying here in my camper.

Day 18 Mon Nov 25
Salk Institute for Biological Studies has two symmetric wings with a water stream flowing towards the ocean in the middle travertine-paved central plaza that separates the two. The buildings have been designed to promote collaboration, and thus there are no walls separating laboratories on any of the floors with a highly refined concrete finish. Barragan told Kahn that he should not add one leaf, nor plant, not one flower, nor dirt, instead, make it a plaza with a single water feature. The resulting space is considered the most impressive element of the entire design.

The concrete was made with volcanic ash giving a warm, pinkish glow. Each laboratory block has five study towers, with each tower containing four offices. A diagonal wall allows each of the thirty-six scientists using the studies to have a view of the Pacific – each is entirely free of internal support columns.
Geisel Library is the main library building of the University of California, San Diego. It is named in honour of Audrey and Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as children’s author Dr. Seuss. The building’s distinctive architecture, described as occupying “a fascinating nexus between brutalism and futurism”,^[1] has made it an iconic and widely recognized building on campus.
The library opened in 1970 and was renamed Geisel Library in 1995. It also contains the Dr. Seuss Collection, which includes original drawings, sketches, proofs, notebooks, manuscript drafts, books, audio and videotapes, photographs, and memorabilia – 8,500 items.
The building’s arches, in combination with the design of the individual floors, are intended to look like hands holding up a stack of books. It is a reinforced concrete structure. Its tower rises 8 stories to a height of 110 ft (33.5 m). The five upper stories of the tower house collections, individual study spaces, and group study rooms.Architectural Delights

San Diego Mormon Temple. Wow, this must be the largest most elaborate LDS temple in the world with two main spires, but unique to this temple are four smaller spires at the base of each main spire. The East spire is topped with the familiar angel Moroni statue which has historically been on many of the church’s temples. It opened in 1993 with 4 ordinance rooms and 8 sealing rooms,

Tour of Slowjamastan’s national radio station with The Sultan Randy Williams who serves as the Program Director for Slow Jams Radio. In partnership with iHeart Radio, Slow Jams Radio is a 24-hour, all-Slow Jams radio station. Slow Jams Radio features a special mix of Slow Jams from today and yesterday. Along with the greatest Slow Jams ever recorded, the station features the world’s top Slow Jams DJs, including R Dub!, Lisa St. Regis and Xavier “The X-Man.” At this time, Slow Jams Radio is only available online. Slowjamastan does not yet have a terrestrial AM or FM radio station.
ON On highway before turn to Borrego Springs

Day 19 Tue Nov 26

CALIFORNIA INTERIOR (Palm Springs; Sierra Nevada and Desert)
Serpent Sculpture, Borrego Springs. The 350-foot-long serpent is the most recent edition to a garden of 129 metal sculptures in Galleta Meadows Estates.  The sculpture garden is the vision of Dennis Avery, who envisioned free-standing art on his property that represented the wildlife and history of the area. Avery is now deceased and an heir to the Avery label fortune. Galleta Meadows is unfenced and open to the public. The metal sculptures have different themes. The largest theme appears to be of prehistoric animals, including dinosaurs, wild horses in the nearby field, and sabertooth tigers in pursuit. Other themes have a connection to the desert environment, such as desert animals, including scorpions, bighorn sheep, and desert tortoises. There is also at least one religious sculpture of a priest carrying a cross through the desert. Free
It was a 14-mile drive each way to Borrego Springs.

The Republic of Slowjamistan (The United Territories of The Sovereign Nation of the People’s Republic of Slowjamastan) was founded in 2021 as a micronation by Randy Williams who is a DJ at FM 92.5 in San Diego. The country offers citizenship, passports and even diplomatic and political appointments for qualified applicants.
The only rule is to never wear Crocs inside the Republic, listen to mumble rap, or drive in the passing lane while not passing – you’re their kinda citizen.
At the micronation see the guard/entry house with a barricade, huge stocks for Croc wearers, a lovely piece of concrete with the flag pole, a desk (where the Sultan gives his speeches, all wrapped up to protect from the weather), land mine signs, signs signifying some states inside Slowjamistan (High Wadi and pictures of mushrooms), the ship in the desert and lots of tracks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salvation Mountain, Salton Sea. Created by local resident Leonard Knight (1931–2014) near the Slab City squatter/art commune, the artwork is made of adobe bricks, discarded tires and windows, automobile parts and thousands of gallons of paint. It has numerous murals and areas painted with Christian sayings and Bible verses.
It requires constant upkeep due to the harsh desert environment. Many visitors donate paint and in 2011, a public charity, Salvation Mountain, Inc. was established to support the project. In 2011, the “mountain” was several stories high and was about a hundred yards wide. The Hogan is an adobe dome-like structure. He lived in a shack on the back of his truck for 27 years.
He was a “visionary American folk artist” whose message was “unconditional love to humankind”. Many visitors seek out Salvation Mountain to pray and leave an item at the mountain as a symbol of giving themselves to God. The museum is held up by adobe and straw, car parts and a tangle of trees that twist within the dome and reach through the top. It is repainted twice a year to ensure that the paint layer is very thick. The work stands as a 50 ft-tall piece of religious folk art, and for Slab City, “an unofficial centrepiece for the community and [cementing] the area’s anarchic creative identity”.

International Banana Museum, Mecca. Permanently closed. 

PALM SPRINGS
Desert Art Center. A lovely small space showcasing local artists, some very good – pottery, glass, jewelry, and many paintings. Free
Palm Springs Tramway is the largest rotating aerial tramway in the world. It was opened in 1963 from Chino Canyon to near the top of San Jacinto Peak The rotating cars were added in 2000. The twelve-and-a-half minute ride ascends from 2,643 ft (806 m) and passes up a sheer mountain face through five biomes (Sonoran Desert to alpine forest) to the Mountain Station at 8,516 ft (2,596 m) above sea level.
Added in 2000, the floor of the 18-foot-diameter (5.5 m) cars (each holds 80 passengers) rotates constantly, making two complete revolutions in the journey so passengers can see in all directions without moving. It can be as much as 40 °F (22 °C) cooler at the top. Walk along nature trails or play in the snow in the winter months Back-country hiking can be done with a permit. There are two restaurants at the summit.
The view at the top can stretch northward for more than 200 mi (320 km) on a clear day, all the way to Mount Charleston north of Las Vegas, Nevada. Views to the east and west can stretch as far as 75 mi (121 km). California’s Salton Sea is visible to the southeast.
The 4-mile drive to the lower station is quite steep and my engine got very hot. It costs $15 to park and $33 for the tram ride. There was a 2 1/2 hour wait. The view to the north was clear but to the south was obscured by smog. It was not worth the trip.
Forever Marilyn is a 26-foot-tall (7.9 m) 34,000-pound giant statue of Marilyn Monroe designed by Seward Johnson. The statue is an image of Monroe taken from Billy Wilder’s 1955 infidelity comedy The Seven Year Itch with the figure capturing the instant a blast of air from a NYC subway grate raises her white dress. Created in 2011, it is made of painted stainless steel and aluminum.
It was moved in 2012 to the corner of Palm Canyon Drive and Tahquitz Canyon Way in Palm Springs, in 2014-15 to Hamilton, New Jersey as part of a 2014 retrospective honouring Seward Johnson, in 2016 to Bendigo Australia for the Bendigo Art Gallery’s Marilyn Monroe exhibition, in 2018, to Stamford, Connecticut, as part of a large public art exhibition honouring the works of Seward Johnson and in 2021, it returned to Palm Springs to the walkway to the art museum.

Palm Springs Art Museum. Closed on Tuesday. It had an exhibit by David Hockley that I was disappointed to not see.
Agua Caliente Culural Museum. Showcases the local Indian tribe (9 clans) on whose land Palm Springs is built. Wait for 15 minutes to see the start of a video that tells the creation myth of the tribe (what a waste of time but here as there is not much else in the museum). The mistreatment of the tribe over the years (broken treaties etc etc), great woven baskets and a small amount of archaeology (lovely abalone shell pendants and several mano/metates). A very good photography exhibit by a Kiowa man from Oklahoma with photos from the late 20s to 50s. $10, $5 reduced.
Palm Springs Historical Museum. Consists of a small museum, a general store and a house made of railway ties. Free
Moorten Biological Garden. Lots of cactus and other succulents and other desert trees and bushes. $7
I started my drive towards Quartzite. 
ON on a pass with a truck stop about 100 miles from Quartzite.

Day 19 Wed Nov 27
I was up early to get work done on my camper in Quartzite. The 28th is Thanksgiving and I was going to have a day off. 

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