Los Angeles

On Sunday 5/18/2014 we arrived at our abode for the week. Balboa RV Park. The biggest RV park in LA area. Home to traveling nurses, lesser lights in the film industry and divorced firemen.  It's not a bad place but the noise from helicopters hovering over the freeways that surround us are deafening at times.  Multiple artists painted murals around the place. The Yellow Brick road is nice.

Monday we head to Pasadena to visit Shelley and the children. Lily loves all her presents. Board books from Valerie that I cleaned. The Melanie doll from Valerie that I repaired. A lovely red velveteen dress that was Jasmine's. Lots of Tupperware for her play kitchen and a cute purse we found in Cancun. Handmade by the Mayans. 

Presents are so much fun. Nothing for Max. But he is too little to care. He is just happy when you pay attention to him.

David's twin Daniel is working at the nearby Huntington Gardens. He gets us free entry tickets. Lily is quite familiar with the garden. Daniel's girlfriend often brings her here.

We first head to the children's garden, a favorite of Lily. Water features to play in and new friends to dance with.

Lets head over to the lily pond to look for Daniel.  It's time to feed the fish and Lily can help throw the food. Then Lily and another new friend watch the turtles try to get the food that Lily did not quite get in the pond.

Even Shelley is tired as she has to hike out carrying both children.

On Tuesday we head off to the Page Museum, La Brea Tar Pits and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).  Lily is going out with Daniel's girl friend today. So we tourist on our own.  Learned a lot about the tar pits. Lots of bones of ancient mammals such as mammoths, saber-tooth cats, giant sloths and others were found here trapped by the tar. But no dinosaurs. LA was deep under water during the time of the dinosaurs. 

Discoveries continue to be made here as the tar is sifted through for large and small bones, seeds and plant fragments.

We eat lunch at LACMA and plan what we want to see. This is a really big museum and it would take more than one afternoon to see it all. So we plan to see the paintings in a couple of buildings and the art of South and Southeast Asia.

 William with an image of Shiva dancing.

The museum had one of the many paintings of water lilies by Monet.

Wednesday is our day to visit the Getty. These freeways are tiresome. It takes so long to get anywhere and they are full of traffic most of the time.

The Getty is very worthwhile and we visit most all of it though we spend less time viewing the decorative arts.  

Getty has the original Irises. I was thrilled to see it since I had painted a bit of it in painting class, Community Canvas.  

We saw another of these at Peggy Guggenheim's museum in Venice.

Gardens were pretty, but small. There is a special exhibit of Ansel Adams photographs that we enjoy very much. The special exhibit of Jackson Pollock's Mural 

is interesting, but not quite so enjoyable. It does look like something Peggy Guggenheim would have liked as it was done for her.

Thursday we meet Shelley and the children again at the Natural History Museum

Yipes, we did not realize that the first thing that happens in the morning here is that hoards of school children thunder in.

We cannot hear ourselves think as their high pitched screechy voices resound in the exhibit halls.  We try to find areas where they are not and soon enough it is time for us to visit the butterflies.

 Lily is somewhat disappointed since the butterflies are not doing much fluttering. It is a cloudy day.  We spot quite a few butterflies anyway.  After lurking in a few places where not too many children are visiting we take an early lunch. Lily is hungry anyway and we are assured that the schoolkids begin to leave after lunch.  Much better after lunch and Lily enjoys the dinosaur exhibits.  She is very good at matching up the dinosaur heads.

Max does very good today switching back and forth between the sling and the stroller.  At the end of the day he is back in the sling and Lily is in the stroller.
Friday William and I head to the Norton Simon Museum. It is in Pasadena very close to Shelley's house.  This is a model for how rich people who are into collecting art can get themselves a museum.  The Pasadena Art museum was in financial trouble and Norton Simon helped them out and helped himself to a museum.  We enjoyed the museum. It was nicely laid out and had a lot of art from my favorite time period, 19th century and early 20th century.  They did have a self portrait by Rembrandt, 1636, that was very classy.

 The sculpture garden was nicely laid out around a lily pond.

William was disappointed that part of the South and Southeast Asian art downstairs was closed because they were packing up an item to ship off for loan to another museum.
We head over to Shelley's with another gift for Lily from the Norton Simon. A palette of colors in tiny board books.

Dinner will be with everyone including David.

 He had some last minute work to do at the office, but we are going by Metro and the restaurant is close.  Such a lovely visit with niece and her family.