Photo Essay: Pasadena Heritage Throws Open the Doors to the Historic Blinn House

[Last updated 9/22/23 12:21 AM PT—Fixed inaccuracies about Blinn House Foundation and Frank Lloyd Wright]

When the Women's City Club of Pasadena dissolved in May 2020, it meant their clubhouse—the Blinn House—needed to go to a good caretaker.

The ladies gifted it to the preservation-oriented non-profit Pasadena Heritage—and now they've moved in, this historic home is once again bustling with events. 

Fortunately, it was also open for tours during California Preservation Foundation's Doors Open California 2023. 

Taking In the View of 'Smoke Spotters' at Keller Peak Fire Lookout Tower, San Bernardino National Forest

Two years ago, I ascended to the Ancient and Honorable Order of Squirrels at the Strawberry Peak Fire Lookout Tower in the San Bernardino Mountains, near Lake Arrowhead.

It was such a fun experience, I wanted to return to shoot one of the videos I've been producing for our local PBS station, KCET, and its digital series "SoCal Wanderer."

But my contact at the Southern California Mountains Foundation, the non-profit organization that oversees the fire lookout tower program in the San Bernardino Mountains, suggested I visit a different lookout tower this time: Keller Peak, near the town of Running Springs.  

Photo Essay: The Reunion House, in Silver Lake's Neutra Colony

I'd been booked for a tour of the Neutra-designed Reunion House back in 2018—but things happened, as they do, and I wasn't able to make it. 

That was the year before Dion Neutra, who was living there at the time, passed away.  

Photo Essay: The Nirvana Apartments, A Vivid Hollywood Version of the 'East'

I can't tell you how many times I've passed by The Nirvana on Orange Drive in Hollywood, either on my way to the parking structure at Hollywood & Highland (now Ovation) or heading home from The Magic Castle. 

But I never noticed its pagoda roofline—or any of the strange, eclectic decorative details that adorned the four-story, brick-clad apartment building.

Photo Essay: Hanging Out In 'Hangtown,' Or Maybe Getting Sick in Placerville

Now that I've got some distance from it, I've been thinking a bit about what happened in the days before I came down with COVID-19 last year. 

I'm still not sure where I caught it, or how—but since I was traveling and bopping around to a lot of different spots, I may never know.

 

It was 4th of July weekend, and I was headed up to the Great Western Steam-Up in Carson City, Nevada. But first, I made a pit stop at the tiki bar in Sacramento (a.k.a. The Jungle Bird) and spent the night in the "Gold Rush" town of Placerville, California.

A Nightmare Come True

Image by Marcela Bolívar from Pixabay  

Over the last couple of years, maybe a few years, I've had this recurring dream. Well, actually, it's two recurring dreams. 

In one, I've got a mouthful of glass shards that I'm trying to spit out. I haven't been chewing on the glass, so I don't know how the broken pieces got in there—but I'm desperate to get them out. I'm opening my mouth to let them fall out; I'm wriggling around my tongue and stretching out my lips to dislodge them; I'm reaching in with my fingers to pull them out. 

But with every bit of glass that's removed, more arrives in its place. 

Taken By the River

The last time I kayaked the Elysian Valley section of the Los Angeles River, I celebrated a certain victory—not falling in, despite some rocky patches and rough waters.

But at the time, I noted that the river might change its mind and have other plans for me the next time. 

And that ended up ringing true, when I returned a couple of weeks ago to shoot a video for KCET's SoCal Wanderer YouTube series. 

    

Looking for Gold at Hot Creek Geologic Site, the Eastern Sierra's Volcanic Hot Spring Gorge (Updated)

Update 9/2/23 12:44 AM PT—According to a press release from Friends of the Inyo, a federal appeals court reversed a prior decision from a lower district court and overturned the U.S. Forest Service’s 2021 approval that allowed gold-mining exploration Inyo National Forest’s Long Valley area. This may not be the end—but it's a victory for now.

In Mono County's Hot Creek Gorge in the Eastern Sierra, a colorful display of bright blue, green, and turquoise indicates where boiling water bubbles up—after percolating deep underground in a thermal aquifer near hot, subterranean magma located about 3 miles beneath the surface.

 

At the geological wonder known as Hot Creek Geologic Site, water heats up and is pressurized far beneath the earth in a literal hotbed of geothermal activity.

Hot Dog (on a) Stick Returns to Santa Monica's Ocean Front Walk... A Bit Different

They thought that it would look the same. And from afar, it almost does.

 

But I'm sad to say, the replica of the original Hot Dog on a Stick stand by the Santa Monica Pier is not the same.

Photo Essay: Streamline Modernity in Silver Lake, Los Angeles

I'm a looky-loo, but I don't always like to be in people's homes while they're still living there. I'll make an occasional exception for a rare public tour—or if the house is listed for sale and lots of people are wandering through anyway. 

 

The "Silver Ridge" estate recently fit the bill on both marks—at the time, listed for $3.5 MM for five bedrooms, three baths, and a two-car garage below on a 13,900-square-foot lot.