Photoessay #2872 - The California Dream

I can imagine my proud father staging this picture.  Only in his 20s and he's made The California Dream already!  His slim attractive wife holding their darling baby girl (that's me!) between two TWO late model cars.  In southern California!

What could be better?

Late 1952 or early 1953.  In Los Angeles County, probably Monrovia or Duarte.  Everything spic and span.

The cars had names.  Baby on the left and Junior on the right.

Photoessay #2863 - Artifacts

When I was in Glendora, I bought a 'Postcard History Series' book at the Glendora Historical Society.  A chapter described Judge Silent, a jurist and entrepreneur and the Glendora property that he developed into a personal estate with an especial interest in horticulture.  Love to have seen it.  It fell out of the family's hands after his death and the developers bought the property doing their Southern California thing.  But the palm lined drive remains or Kregmont Drive; I think it was the road up to the estate.

So the palms there have their own majesty in a nondescript development.

Artifacts.  Southern California style

Photoessay #2861 - Glendora in the hills

The last day of our trip we went driving in the hills right in back of Glendora.  The houses abut right into the hills.  The view of the hills (the foothills, the San Gabriel mountains) are visible everywhere.

Just as in my parent's day, they become wild right away.  We went above Glendor and also above Azusa.  I was a little concerned because I had read that people drive fast and crazy up there.

But generally it was quiet.  Really we are only a few miles from civilization in these shots.

A city sign, a view of Dennis walking along the road, the view into the valley.

Photoessay #2860 - SoCal food

I would like to feature our two favorite places on our recent four day trip to Southern California.

Rika's Empanadas in Glendora in the San Gabriel Valley.  This place got excellent reviews; we went there twice.  Unassuming in a strip mall.  Argentine.  Empanadas (shown).  Many delicious kinds.  We ordered quite a few.  All delicious.  The prune bacon, yes.  Personally I liked the eggplant and spinach ricotta.  On the weekends, they have fabulous pastries using lots of home made dulce du leche.  Should be outlawed.  The first night we ordered up a confection that included philo dough, ducle du leche, and peaches.  Later in the weekend, we sent there for lunch and each had crepes.  So much we had some leftover for the next day.

Monte Alban in Santa Monica.  My cousin Jon T took us there.  In Santa Monica again in a small shopping strip mall place.  Now I love the mole that La Raza makes.  But this place had at least three kinds of moles.  I ordered the chicken breast with the dark brown mole and rice (shown).  This mole was so rich and definitely tasted of chocolate.  Delicious!

Not all of our choices in SoCal panned out but these two were the very best.

Photoessay #2585 - Glendora Views

I took these two pictures at our hotel in Glendora on old Route 66 and looking across the street.

Glendora, a town from the later 19th century, is now a part of urbanized towns together in the San Gabriel Valley.  My parents moved there in 1954, bought their first house.  But by 1957, they were gone, moving up to Aerojet's new 'plant' outside of Sacramento.  My father always called the place he worked "the plant".

The development from the new postwar industry doomed the citrus groves that filled the valley.  One reason I went down was to find some orange trees.  Which I did and posted.

I liked Glendora a lot more than I expected.  It had a cute downtown shopping district.  The neighborhoods are likely not very changed from the 1950s.  I know that my parent's house looks much the same from the front.  We stopped at the Glendora Historical Society.  Lent them some pictures that I do want back.  They told us where to find some orange groves which turned out to belong to the Glendora Preservation folks.  Warm fine weather.

The towns on the north part of the valley back up right against the mountains.

What's not to like.  This area was not depressed economically.  But not tourist oriented.  No bed and breakfast to be found.  Probably couldn't find a short term rental.  But I thought it would be nice maybe to spend a week or two in the winter.  Dennis declared it boring.  "You just like it because the sun is out," he told me.

Yeah.  Yeah.  Right.  That's exactly why I like it.

On the news front, my friend Gin and I went downtown to Nordstroms and bought a new outfit for my talk in Connecticut.  Thanks Gin!

Photoessay #2584 - My third cousin Jon!

I had another orange post in mind today.  Maybe I will do it tomorrow.

And I know that I missed yesterday.  But we went up into the mountains then made our way to the Ontario airport and got home many hours later very late.

But I would like to introduce my third cousin Jon T who I was delighted to meet.  I'm pretty pleased with how the pictures came out.  We didn't take too many so I was not sure.  But we had a great time.  We met at the Getty in LA which is a trip in conspicuous all by itself.  Even if it's free admission; you have to pay $15 to park.  But they have a more fancy building and garden and art than ANYBODY.  To say nothing of the view of LA.

I like to tell the story of how people in New Haven mention him.  "Jon, he went to CalifFORnia and I think he's in the MOVIES."  And sure enough he was.  We were having a great time; his wife was taking care of business in Virginia; he offered to take us out to dinner, which we accepted.  We went to this great mexican place in Santa Monica.  Now I love our local Tacqueria Raza people and their mole.  But this place had all kinds of different moles.  I had the dark and it was sweeter and tasted of chocolate.

We talked about the relatives who he's known since he was young and I've just met.  Including his friend Brendan Zunder who recently passed away.  I was sorry to be the one to give him the news some months ago.  Nobody had let him know.

But the whole experience, the Getty, the restaurant in Santa Monica, Jon, the movie talk, even bumbling around on the Socal freeways ... So LA!