Built in 1929, the guard house of the historic Adamson House sits just inside the entrance gate. I’d love to have a peek inside, but it’s not open to the public; it’s the private residence of a State Park ranger. Is it full of spectacular tiles, like the main house, I wonder?
I met up with Urban Sketchers Los Angeles at Santa Monica Pier yesterday; it was much easier to sketch the seated sketchers than the tourists walking by!
After many months without a working cell phone — it wouldn’t hold a charge for even a minute — I finally got a new battery in it today. Voila! I can unplug and it stays charged! New life for the 8 year old phone! Certain friends are going to be very happy about this. You know who you are.
It’s fun to come across living organisms in unexpected places.
I recently read this article about the quirky US roadside phenomena generically known as Muffler Men, though any individual giant might advertise something other than car parts. Apparently they are now very rare, but we have one in our town. Malibu’s version, erected in the late 1960s atop Frostie Freeze, originally held a massive burger. He was re-styled in 1988 to be La Salsa Man; you can read more about the conversion here. Now he’s missing his serape and tire sandals, and the store below remains empty because of septic tank issues. I wonder what his next iteration might be? Plumbing Man?
Even a long wait is tolerable when you have a sketchbook.
Sitting in the shade of the huge old sycamore tree at Adamson House, looking towards the beach.
Would you drink from a spring in the middle of Los Angeles? I did. It tasted fairly neutral, and I didn’t get sick. In fact, someone in the museum told my friend the water was reputed to be heal joint and muscle pain. Regardless, it was nice to drink water straight from the ground in the middle of a metropolis, with no ill-effects.
I went to my first Urban Sketchers event in a year; we met at Kuruvunga Village Springs, which is only a 30 minute drive from home, but I’d somehow never heard of it before. This very large dragon tree caught my attention.
A couple of fun things happened when I arrived. First I saw a guy I worked with years ago, and his wife, and we had a nice catchup. He was just randomly visiting the springs that day, nothing to do with USK. Then, I overheard one of the other sketchers mention John Muir Laws, so I sidled over and told her about our new nature journal club. She was very interested and said she’ll come along. Yay!
We stopped in Ventura on the way home and ate a lovely dinner here. Quick sketch of the friends at a neighbouring table before our food arrived.
hashiworks 