We did another fun, crammed day with Becca & Rolin, starting off too early in the morning at the South Coast Botanical Garden.
Here's the sexy couple that joined us.
Ah, contemplation in the cactus garden.
Adorable little birdie bathing.
See me. Hear me. Feel me.
Scouring the area around the Banyans. I have no idea what we were looking for. Worms?
Becca & her vaginal banyan art.
Lovely crane in the pond.
After that we checked out the amazingness that is Watts Towers. These were made by a little Italian man named Sam Rodia. He spent over 30 years creating it all by hand. Everything is made from concrete, rebar, & ceramic tiles & glass. There's a great hard to find documentary about him, called "I build the tower". When he first moved to LA, he was looking at two different plots of land to buy; the one he did in Watts & another in Beverly Hills, before it was "Beverly Hills". It's where the current location of the Beverly Hills Hilton is located.
This is Jason's book jacket photo.
Moi in front of the sign explaining the tower on the left is based on Marco Polo's ships mast.
Then we were off to Randy's Donuts in Inglewood. Yum Yum Yum Yum!!! Jason & I got the "big one!" Can you tell I'm tired of smiling for the camera?
Nom nom nom!!1!
Bellies now full sweet gooey goodness, we made the short trek to the California Science Center. This is truck display outside that Becca & Jason are strong enough to lift up.
A pretty neat purple gazebo w/ odd hanging little golden balls was located just outside.
One of the things I wanted to do before leaving LA was to see the Museum of Neon Art. They had lost their downtown lease & were currently closed. However in the meantime, they had a show of 6 artists at the CSC, so I wanted to go & see the work. I didn't realize that they only put in one piece per artist in the show. It was still neat, but just a little blip in the hallway. So here's a neon lizard.
They also had a "Fear" exhibit up, which included tarantulas & hissing Madagascar cockroaches. Becca has a fear of falling so she let herself be strapped into a "fall" machine. It was safe, but made a very loud noise on impact.
I followed up that by riding the air bike, which is suspending 3 stories above the lobby. There's a net, but I didn't really care about that when the person who ran the bike decided to have it rock back & forth. Nope, did not like her.
We're tired & sleepy & hungry. We decide to drive to El Pueblo for food. But first, view the Bob Hope Patriotic Hall. The architecture is just odd to me.
At the yummy cantina in El Pueblo.
Though we're no longer hungry, we're still tired, though not yet grumpy. Everyone was very nice in continuing to Angels Flight, located at Hill & Third downtown. It was supposed to open again in the summer of 2007, but has yet to at this time. Originally built in 1901, what's neat about AF is not only does it claim to be the shortest railway in the world, but also the rail mechanism itself is somewhat unique. It had two cars pulled by one cable; so one car would go up & the other would go down. This one closed in 1969. A new mechanism was used when it reopened in 1996. New isn't always better, because about 5 years after it opened one of the cars lost control & crashed into the other causing someone to die. Here it is from the bottom.
And the top, too.
And just so you know- Do not Feed the Pigeons.
And Do Not Eat the Pigeons. Really, Angels Flight isn't in the best neighborhood.
Our day of bliss over, Fred bids us au Dieu & to come again.
