At last after several months of planning our holiday over the pond has come to fruition. After a twenty two hour journey from Edinburgh Airport to my son and his wife’s apartment in Santa Monica California we can at last relax and get over jet lag. So I am sorry but all of this blog and the start of the next will be holiday snap time. Of course there will be none of me with my muscle bound body surfing the waves or doing pull ups on the beach, I will try to make it cultural as possible.
17th
We had a four and a half hour stopover at Newark Airport and this was the nearest we got to our much loved New York, the view from the United Airline lounge.
18th.
Our first walk from the apartment and outside was this beautiful Bottle Brush tree followed by two more, which made the street look so good.
The Eastern coast of Scotland has followed us here as our first view of the Pacific was in a Haar, though you do not see many palm trees on the beech at Aberdeen.
We did not go onto the beach just walked along the cliff tops, were there were many knurled trees obviously due to storms etc. but very interesting to see.
All along the path were palm trees.
We went on our return trip back a couple of blocks from the sea and found a wonderful street market. This was just one of the wonderful fruit displays.
Blood oranges my favourites.
Today The Getty in the hills above L.A.
The view over L.A. and still the Haar is hanging on.
A major exhibition was on by the famous female sculpture Camille Claudel and her work was full of such wonderful detail as you will see below.
19th
Today was Venice Beach and canals, such a selection of houses and gardens all along the canal most enjoyable.
20th.
In Scotland the Curlew is considered a fairly shy bird that you hear it’s magnificent call rather than see, here they are two a penny on the sea shore, got fairly close to these two before they flew off and then captured one in flight.
UCLA Botanic garden in the afternoon battling the freeway traffic, taken from a bridge as we were about to join this manic scene.
Saw this baby bird (no idea what it is) and waited patiently for a parent to come and feed it , only to get a leaf in front of the baby’s eye to ruin the shot, so annoying.
Although fifty percent of the gardens were closed due to reconstruction we did enjoy what we could see. So here are some of the plants we did see.
24th.
Went up to Pasadena today to the Huntingdon Library and Botanic Gardens, the gardens are so vast it took us many hours to explore all the different gardens , most enjoyed the Japanese and Chinese gardens the best but overall a wonderful worth while trip.
The first section of the entry showed what to expect for the rest of the collection.
The first shot is part and I repeat only part of the Japanese garden, the first shot you can see the waterfall in the middle , the second is from behind the waterfall.
The range of trees in the Chinese garden was wonderful and so well laid out and maintained.
The desert area had so many different type of Cactus and all huge.
Of course neither of the oriental gardens would be complete without Koi and no blog of mine would be complete without including fish, these were all huge and such variety of colour. The thin white pieces were Bamboo leaves that hd fallen into the water not small fish.
The variety of plants around the watercourses really made the scene.
The Bonsai collection was incredible and the guy in the first shot does nothing but trim them , the sample he was working on here is forty years old, please excuse the lady in blue she gets in a lot of my shots.
26th.
Just walking the beach today and by a river inlet sat this bunch of birds, a new species for me and not even in my guide to Californian birds. Corsican Terns one of the largest of the Tern family.
28th.
Today we travelled two hours south to where my son used to live fifteen years ago just to reminisce for the day to the town of San Clemente and visited old favourite haunts.
The beach which we used to walk along daily.
The restaurant on the pier where we used to go and have the evening special and watch the sunset, with a wee glass of wine. Today we had lunch and a drink. still as tasty as ever and a great spot.
Watched the surfers.
And saw the sights around the shops (poor dog)
29th.
Went to the L.A. County Museum of Art today and below are a selection of shots from there.
Red Ants
A Display of lights as an art feature, must look great at night.
This was totally incredible hundreds of small cars going around all this track taken to a height on the top middle and the falling back down by gravity.
Also next to the museum was the Tar Pits, where oil in the form of tar bubbles to the surface either on land or as illustrated through water.
30th.
Last day of the month, we went to The Griffith Observatory, up in the Hollywood Hills.
The Observatory.
The obligatory sign.
The view from the roof of the Observatory, I reckon that road goes as straight as that for at least ten miles, incredible.