Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to our family and friends! None of the kids could make it to California this year, but we made the best of it. Henry and I spent the day together and cooked up a great meal.

Well ok, I did most of the cooking, but Henry carved the turkey! And he helped eat it all.

 

 

 

I like to tease Henry, but the truth is that I'm so thankful to have him. And my girls. And my friends. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Echo Mountain Hike

This weekend we took advantage of a cool, crisp day to take a local hike up Echo Mountain. The views of downtown LA and the surrounding areas were great as we hiked up the mountain.

At the top are the ruins from what was once a resort - an 80-room hotel, 40-room chalet,  casino, dance hall, small zoo, and an observatory. These facilities sat atop Echo Mountain at 3250 ft, and had spectactular views acros the entire LA basin all the way to the ocean. The buildings were all painted white, and it was known as the "White City."

This was the large hotel. It was four stories high and the entire inside was finished in natural wood.

 Visitors took an incline cable car that climbed a grade as steep as 62%. This was the only way to get to the resort, which opened in 1893.

 

 

Unfortunately, the whole enterprise was plagued with problems, including fires in 1900 and 1905 that destroyed most of the buidings, and gale force winds that toppled the observatory in 1928.  Then in 1938 heavy rains washed much of the rail line off the side of the mountain, and the railway was officially abandoned. All that's left today are building foundations and a few remnants of the railway.

 

 

 

This hike was good exercise (all uphill!) and really interesting.

 

 

Pool House Update

OK, this isn't about a trip or an outing, but when I mentioned that we were updating the pool house, Alicia asked to see a picture. So here's the "before" shot:

What you can't see very well is that the roof was falling apart, in addition to the sad condition of the wood and bricks. So Henry re-roofed and added two new doors, and I repainted. Here's the "after" shot:

Not the most exciting post, but we had fun fixing up the pool house!

Colorado Weekend

Henry and I spent a long weekend in Colorado. The weather was cool and the trees were all changing color. And Alicia and Kyle were such wonderful hosts - thanks, you guys!

Alicia cooked for us at home and at work. Everything she made was awesome!

  

We did some local hiking.

Dave came up from Denver and joined us for some beer tasting and dinner.

 

Henry and I visited the town of Golden and thought it was really beautiful.

On our last day Alicia, Henry and I visited Dave at the Colorado School of Mines, where he works. We got a tour and then we all had lunch.

Dave had to go back to work, so he couldn't join us at the Coors brewery where we stopped on our way to the airport.

We took a self-guided tour...

and did some tasting.

It was great spending some time with Alicia, Kyle and Dave.

We love Colorado in the fall!

Thanks to Kyle for contributing a couple of pictures!

A Day at the Races

JPL held an event for all employees at the Santa Anita race track. We had our own area with tables and food in the center of the track. It was a gorgeous day, although the temperature was in the 90's and we were pretty hot.

Henry had never been to the racetrack before. So we watched the races and tried to pick the winners. Henry didn't seem to understand that you're supposed to pick who's going to be in FIRST place, not LAST place... it's a good thing he didn't bet any money!

In-between races we wandered around a car show. There were lots of amazing, restored vintage cars.

 

Henry  was, of course, fascinated by the John Deere equipment used to smooth the track after every race. They had 4 big tractors just to smooth out the hoofprints in the dirt - not exactly real farming.

We also met the horse that played the part of Seabiscuit in the movie a few years ago.  I jumped right after this shot was taken because he started nibbling my hand! It turns out that he just wanted to be petted.

We had a good time. Going to the racetrack is a fun thing to do every now and then.

It's Apple Season

This weekend we went out to some apple orchards to get some freshly picked apples. The orchards are close to Redlands, where I lived for about 3 years when I was 4 to 6 years old. I remembered my old address (probably because it was the first one I ever learned) and we were able to find my old house. It looks so "sixties," but I did live there in the early sixties.

 

We noticed that there was a historical landmark very close to the house and so we went to look at it. It's an 1897 victorian house on 6 acres of land that was owned by J. Alfred Kimberly, a founder of the Kimberly-Clark paper company. The house and the italian-style gardens were amazing, but we couldn't go into the house because it wasn't open for visitors at the time of day we were there.

We left Relands and went on to Oak Glen, a little town with several apple farms where you can pick your own apples or buy fresh apples and cider.

They also have a petting zoo with a strange assortment of animals - goats and ostriches.

You can pick your own raspberries, although we didn't this time.

Have you ever heard of apple tasting? One farm had slices of the 15 or 20 different types of apples that they grow for visitors to taste!

 

And of course the best part of the whole trip was getting a slice of fresh apple pie a la mode!

Go Dodgers!

We spent a warm LA Friday night at a Dodger game.

The Dodgers were playing the Colorado Rockies - fun for former Colorado resident Henry!

By the time we got to my favorite part - the 7th inning stretch - it wasn't looking good for the Rockies. But the Dodger fans were pumped up and sang their hearts out.

In the end, the Dodgers slaughtered the Rockies, 8 to 0! (sorry Henry)  Every Friday night after the game they let people onto the field and do a fireworks show. We've never stayed before, but since the Dodgers so efficiently wiped out the competition (oops, sorry again Henry), it was still pretty early and so we stayed for the show.

The fireworks were great - can't believe they do a show like that every week!  The coolest one was a type that expanded into a red heart shape.

The season is just about over and this was the last game we'll be attending until next spring. It was a great way to end the season. Well, at least for some of us!!