Wednesday, October 28, 2015

SF/LA

Haven't done much traveling in the past two months, but I did visit the two iconic cities of Cali...SF and LA.  Here's a shot of the Sunset district in San Francisco, looking to the ocean.  A vast sea of box houses.  

The Sunset was largely designed by an architect named Henry Doelger in the 1920s/30s.  It was slangily called Doelgerville for awhile.  Though the homes are a lot alike, many have neat Art Deco touches.

Look the other way from the hilltop where the previous pix were taken, and you see downtown SF.  Nice clear day in September.

A cormorant chills at Andrew Molera State Park near Big Sur.

Found this tarantula at the rest area on US 101 near Camp Roberts.  

This family of mammoths went power shopping on Wilshire Boulevard in LA a while back.  They stopped at a nice looking pool to cool off...and got into a sticky situation.  La Brea Tar Pits aren't so good for swimming.  Thousands of Ice Age fossils have been extracted from the pits over the past 100 plus years.

This bas relief at the Page Museum, next to the pits, shows a couple of sabertooth cats jumping on a mammoth stuck in the tar.  Only problem was that the cats often became mired in the goo as well, and perished along with their prey.  Kind of a chain reaction. 



Next to the tar pits is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  This is one of my favorite museums...I've been there several times over the past 40 years.  It has an especially strong Picasso collection.  This likeness of the great French philosopher Voltaire is so lifelike I expected the old fellow to start engaging me in a discussion, which would be neat!  It was done by the eminent sculptor Houdon, who also did a famous bust of  Ben Franklin that I saw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.  Benjie and Voltaire were buddies in Paris...the Frenchman was also friends with Thomas Jefferson.

Downtown LA has a fine collection of Art Deco buildings, including this one, built in 1930.  It was less than a block from my hotel.

A fine view of the same building.  It was beautifully lit at night.

A more modern building nearby reflects the cityscape.

The Lizards came along to do LA.  This pic was taken at the bar on the roof of our hotel.  It's an upscale open air hipster bar...Suz and I were about the only non-hipsters there!  We stayed at the Ace Hotel...great location, lots of hipsters, and really, really good food.