Sightseeing in Los Angeles

We could not leave the LA area without doing some sightseeing. So we took two days off and drove to LA.

We saw the Grammy Museum -- no pictures allowed and they were "patrolling" all the floors -- it was fabulous -- highly recommend it. It had a real recording studio, famous costumes (including the Jennifer Lopez green dress!), a behind the scenes documentary of the grammys, music history, grammy history and much, much more.

That evening we had a great Thai dinner with Vicki & Gautam (forgive me if I misspelled it!) whose parents, Candace and Jim, were neighbors/friends in Tacoma. They live on the UCLA campus where we had tickets to see The Man of LaMancha. Don Quixote was played by Brent Spiner who you might recognize as data from the Star Trek: New Generation series. I must tell you when he sang, Impossible Dream, tears came to my eyes. What a voice. What a treat.

The next day Lance went to the Long Beach Golf Show. Long Beach is just a hop, skip and a jump away from LA and is very beautiful -- right on the ocean.

The next day we went to the LaBrea Tar Pits and the Griffith Observatory. The LaBrea Tar Pits Museum is one of the best museums we have been to. Not only were their displays first class and informative, they actually had a working lab. Have you heard about the new bones they had found?

On the way to the Griffith Observatory we got to see the family HOLLYWOOD sign. What a thrill (can you believe I would all excited over a sign!!!!).

The Griffith Observatory was huge and there were LOTS of people there.

The Cosmic Connection, the corridor linking the historic building above with the new Gunther Depths of Space below, provides the transition from ground-based and more familiar astronomy to a new realm of cosmic perspective. The main element in this passageway is a 150-foot timeline of the universe whimsically composed of celestial-themed jewelry in the glass case that lines the corridor. (from their website: http://www.griffithobservatory.org/). This would make any costume jewelry collector droll.

IT WAS A MEMORABLE AND FUN TWO DAYS....

The Living Desert

One day when Lance was photographing a course Bill, Teri and I went to the Shield's Dates and Living Desert in Palm Desert.

Not only does it have a number of different gardens. Some of their cacti are HUGE!

And, beautiful....

Then, there are the aviaries with birds who like to have their pictures taken.

Oh, my God the butterflies and humming birds were extraordinary.

Yes, it is a momma hummingbird on her nest.

For all you model railroaders, this is the place you will be in model train heaven.

We really enjoyed seeing Bill and Teri, even had a get together with Jeff and Elaine when they were there. So, anytime any of you are in our area come see us!!

Skype

So, now you can see Lance and me more than just during our Holiday trip to the Northwest. Through Skype all you need is a webcam and access to the internet. Here is a picture of me taking a picture of me making a video call from me to me. We have already hooked up with Teri, Martin and a friend of Lance. Pretty simple and pretty cool! Our IDs are coralee.kulman and lance.kulman.

Sightseeing

Teri & Bill came to Mountain Valley RV Park for a visit. We went to Mimi's Cafe for a Valentine's Day dinner. They were real busy....and the food was great. Lance bought me a beautiful bouquet of red roses. I always love fresh flowers in our motorhome.




We have been checking out the area with them. One place we went to was the Western Center Museum. I took this picture (illegally when no one was looking....because it said no photos) of a sloth. It was huge. While building three dams that created a huge lake here in Hemet they discovered a dinosaur find like no other.

We went to an outlet in Lake Elsinore. I wanted to get some more corning ware dishes and bowls. The outlet had beautiful murals painted on the sides of the buildings.

And, flowers all along the way.

We stopped at March Air Force Base and bought a new laptop. Our old one had given up the ghost. It is a beauty and very fast. The computers just keep getting faster and faster.

We were going to see the March Air Museum but arrived just five minutes before they were to close. Well, it had been a fun day anyway and on the way home we saw a beautiful sight of the sun through the clouds.