Year In Review: 2025 Updates to Past Posts

Los Angeles has been through a lot in the time that I've lived here. It took a big hit during the pandemic, and the homelessness crisis just keeps getting worse and worse. 

But nothing in my tenure here has compared to January 2025, when the entire city seemed to be surrounded by fire—and two communities were flattened in the blink of an eye. 

I can't even speak to what so many people went through, losing their homes and possessions and all sense of safety. I can only document a little bit of it, and help preserve the memory of some of our public places with the photos I've taken and the stories I've written. 

The more time that passes, the more it feels that I have a certain duty to share these stories and spread the word about places in danger of being lost, and places that have been spared and saved (including those from the Eaton and Palisades fires and the Sunset Fire at Runyon Canyon).

Because for as much as we mourn and grieve, we must also pay attention, intervene, and celebrate.

We couldn't manage to hold onto Pacific Dining Car. Or David Lynch. But the building that once housed Corky's returned to its former Googie glory. The Crystal Cave in Sequoia National Park finally reopened. And The Los Angeles Breakfast Club turned 100.

While those all got their own new blog posts, here are the updates I made to older posts in 2025:

 

Top Posts of 2025

Boy, it's been a rough year. Between writing my first book, struggling to manage my celiac disease, and losing my sense of smell and trying to conquer long Covid—all with no health insurance—it's been a lot. 

I tend to thrive in chaos, but at some point I just shut down. And that's what happened after I finished writing my manuscript (while I was sick with Covid, might I add). I just couldn't do anything else.

I've slowly tried to put my apartment back together after two years of neglect. I cleaned under the bed (where my cat hides and sometimes pukes) for the first time in I don't know how long. I still have to change my windshield wipers and put a cover on my car backseat and figure out why my turntable doesn't work and sand down my built-in cutting board. 

Oh and now that I'm 50, I've got to get a pneumonia vaccine and a mammogram. And a follow-up colonoscopy. 

And a permanent job that provides benefits.

With all of this going on, I've managed to blog a little this year—much less than I'd like, and much less than what I have to blog about. Funnily enough, this year also brought some of the highest traffic I've ever had—and, for the first time, to posts that aren't solely about Southern California. 

It's nice to see my Nevada and Northern California posts getting some well-deserved attention!

In case you missed any of them, here are my top posts of 2025—featuring a little architecture, a lot of adventure, and a bit of personal sadness, too.

1. Photo Essay: Wallace Neff's Once-Affordable Bubble House Hits An Inflated Real Estate Market

 

Photo Essay: The Wizard of Oz Gets Weird at the Sphere Vegas

Speaking of The Wizard of Oz, the classic movie offered the perfect opportunity to return to the Sphere in Las Vegas. 

Because after dozens of times seeing it on television and home video (and most recently catching it on the big screen in 3D at Gardena Cinema), why not also experience it on the world's largest spherical structure with the world's largest screen?

It seemed like the perfect thing to do on Thanksgiving night—though not a holiday movie per se, but associated with the holidays after decades of TV broadcasts around the end of the year.

 

Photo Essay: A Wizard of Oz Christmas at Hotel del Coronado

One of the first places I visited when I started coming out to Southern California to visit was the Hotel del Coronado, on Coronado Island in San Diego. 

Hotel Del Coronado postcard (between 1907 and 1914), Baja California and the West Postcard Collection. MSS 235. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. [Public Domain]

I fell in love with San Diego right away and tried very hard to get a job there, but fate led me to Los Angeles instead. Still, I've found ways of returning to the city to the south and its grand dame of a Victorian hotel, known simply as "The Del."

   

I've eaten at the restaurant, gotten a hot shell massage in the spa, and taken the historical tour (on a gloomy day during lots of construction, so my photos aren't publishable) and the haunted Halloween tour—but the one thing I was really yearning to do was see the Christmas lights. 

Photo Essay: Christmastime at the Arboretum's Queen Anne Cottage

Of all the world-class botanic gardens in the Los Angeles area, I've probably been to the LA Arboretum the least. 

I don't really know why—be it the distance or simply the absence of a miniature train and a corpse flower. 

But one thing the Arboretum shares with its counterparts, like Descanso Gardens and The Huntington, is that it's located on the grounds of a historic estate. 

This was once the land of pioneer E.J. "Lucky" Baldwin, who came to Northern California in search of gold in 1853. He settled in Southern California in 1875, purchasing the Rancho Santa Anita and later subdividing it to create Arcadia, where the arboretum is now located.

 

Despite his wealth, Baldwin lived quite humbly in a small adobe home. But in 1885, he built a magnificent Queen Anne cottage for the entertaining of guests—and to show off how well he'd done for himself. 

Photo Essay: The Chicken Takeover of a Sweeping Googie Coffee Shop on Ventura Boulevard

I've lived in Los Angeles long enough to see quintessentially quirky Southern Californian architecture either demolished or saved by Corporate America. 

Googie landmarks like the Holiday Bowl coffee shop, Mission Hills Bowl, and Friendly Hills Lanes are now a Starbucks, a Ross Dress for Less, and a BevMo. Norm's has been threatened with a hostile takeover by Raising Cane's. 

Photo taken 2018

And to save Corky's in Sherman Oaks, a.k.a. the former Stanley Burke's and Lamplighter restaurants...

 

 

...it had to be transformed into a Chick-Fil-A. 

Photo Essay: A Station Master's Tour of LA's Monumental Train Terminal

After nearly 15 years of living in Los Angeles, you'd think I've seen everything there is to see. But I'm constantly reminded of how much more there is, hiding beneath all those layers. 

Take Union Station, for instance. I thought my "holy grail" was getting back into the bar space that had become the Streamliner Lounge—which I finally got to do during this year's TrainFest in September.

But as it turns out, this great train station had even more in store for me—revealed to me during a recent tour I took with Los Angeles Railroad Heritage Foundation (LARHF). 

 

Now, all I knew was that it was going to be led my a former station master—so it certainly would be different than the architecturally-focused Los Angeles Conservancy tour I took all the way back in 2012.

Photo Essay: Holiday Bells and Whistles at the Bellagio Conservatory

This was my fourth time spending Thanksgiving in Las Vegas on a solo trip—and after taking myself out to dinner, I decided to head to the Bellagio for the Christmas display in its Conservatory & Botanical Garden.

I'd never seen the Conservatory displays at night—and I thought it might be a little less crowded, since Vegas itself is pretty quiet on Thanksgiving. 

Photo Essay: The Life and Career of Elvis Presley, As Seen Through Graceland's Costume, Car, and Airplane Collections

It actually never really occurred to me that going to Graceland would mean more than just visiting the mansion that Elvis Presley lived in until his death in 1977. 

 

But actually there's more—a lot more—across the street, including the "Elvis: The Entertainer Career Museum."

Photo Essay: An Emotional Visit to Graceland, A Trippy Voyage Back to the 1970s

Memphis had been on my bucket list for a long time—but I kept regretting not going when I was a lot closer to it geographically while I was living in New York City. 

I couldn't fit it in during my trips to Tennessee when I flew to Knoxville for a wedding in Chattanooga in 2005 or Nashville for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in 2007. And after moving to California in 2011, Memphis has just always felt so far. 

It was the type of trip I hadn't allowed myself to splurge on, which made it the perfect way to celebrate a milestone birthday. 

The lynchpin to my birthday trip was, of course, Graceland—the historic home of Elvis Presley from 1957 until his death in 1977. 

Photo Essay: The Memphis of Elvis, Beyond Graceland

The easy explanation for my recent Memphis trip was that I was celebrating my 50th birthday at Graceland. 

But the truth is, I went to Memphis for Elvis. All of Elvis. 

After all, most casual Elvis fans seem to segregate his career into two eras—young Elvis (à la Jailhouse Rock) and Vegas Elvis—and typically prefer the "earlier" one versus the "late" one. But my favorite Elvis era is a middle era: the '68 Comeback Special, when he was coming out of his Paramount movie career and getting back into performing live, right before he started his Las Vegas residency in 1969. 

And I have much affection for the cape-wearing, lei-laden, karate-chopping Elvis of Aloha from Hawaii, That's the Way It Is, and his final album (a live-and-studio combo) Moody Blue. 

I'd already chased all those Elvises around two states—like at the Honeymoon Hideaway and other sites around Palm Springs, and at the former International Hotel on the Vegas Strip. But now, it was time for me to finally experience what remains of The King in his longtime hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.

And that's more than just Graceland (pictured above, of which at least one photo essay is forthcoming.)

Photo Essay: How Southern California Inspired the Creation of This Memphis Cemetery's 'Crystal Cave'

I took a trip to Memphis for my milestone birthday at the end of September, mostly to finally visit Graceland and cross that off my bucket list. 

I really wanted an Elvis-themed weekend, so I shied away from attractions that weren't rooted in the history of rock and roll or its king. 

But there was one exception to my rule, something I definitely did not want to miss: the Crystal Shine Grotto. 

It's touted as "the world's only man-made crystal cave" (I guess the Crystal Cave in Yucca Valley, CA doesn't count because it's foam?)—and from the outside, it looks like a geological oddity tucked away in the middle of East Memphis's Memorial Park Cemetery. 

 

 

Photo Essay: A Nighttime Centennial Celebration for the Breakfast Set

The year 2025 marks the centennial of The Los Angeles Breakfast Club, the storied social club of which I've been a proud member ("Ham-and-Egger," as it were) since April 2017.

The actual birthday is in March—when the club held a special breakfast fête to commemorate the occasion. But this past weekend, we had a big nighttime party to celebrate 100 years of friendship.  

It was held at Friendship Auditorium on Riverside Drive, located on the selfsame site where The Breakfast Club (before "Los Angeles" had to be added to its name for legal reasons) was founded in 1925. But this particular clubhouse building is much more recent—dating back to 1965, built after the club returned to the sacred land after spending a stint at the Ambassador Hotel (now demolished) and an even longer stint at a clubhouse on Los Feliz Boulevard (also demolished). So, it was a double celebration of sorts—the 100th for the club, and the 60th for the auditorium (which is actually owned by the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks). 

 

The club could've celebrated offsite—but it's here that guests could party under horseshoe-adorned chandeliers (an artifact brought over from the Los Feliz Boulevard clubhouse) and don eggy top hats at the photo booth. 

Photo Essay: The California Museum That Celebrates the Art of the Clown

There's something so appealing to me about single-genre museums—like the Bunny Museum or the Banana Museum—and narrowly-curated collections, like the Crochet Museum or the Beauty Bubble Salon and Museum. 

So, despite having no particular affinity to clowns (other than dressing up as one last Halloween), visiting a clown museum in Barstow was still a must-do detour on my way back from Death Valley this past summer.

Photo Essay: WeHo Halloween Carnaval 2025

I've lived in the same Los Angeles neighborhood for 15 Halloweens—and for almost half of them, I've spent the night of October 31 at the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval.

The Things I Never Learned (A.K.A. Time Goes By So Slowly For Those Who Wait)

 

I was born knowing certain things—and knowing how to do certain things. 

I was born knowing how to laugh—and while I may have learned some things along the way, I think I naturally knew how to make others laugh. 

I had a certain understanding of the world once I emerged from the womb—to a certain extent, how to read peoples' minds, or at least grasp their true intentions, despite what they might say or do. I had a natural knack for mimicry—which made me a fast learner, and a deft impersonator. I naturally had a musical sense, which my Grammy praised during our piano lessons—but then I learned how to read music and play it on keyboard, horn, and voice.

But there are certain things I came out of the birth canal not knowing—and, having never been taught those things by my parents, I never learned them. 

A Matter of Taste

With all the work that I've been doing writing The Los Angeles Breakfast Club centennial history book over the last two years, it's no surprise that I would get sick.

Having two autoimmune diseases puts me in the crosshairs for various illnesses anyway—but then I went to the Lady Gaga concert at the Forum—the first such thing I'd done in a long time—and I think that's where I caught a bug. 

But this wasn't just any bug. What started as a loss of appetite, sore throat, and the sniffles turned into the worst headache of my life—one that almost sent me to the emergency room.

Photo Essay: Sequoia National Park's Only Public Cave Reopens (Claustrophobes Beware!)

Sequoia National Park is just one of those places that has intimidated me ever since I moved to California. 

For some reason, I've been able to tackle all the unforgiving deserts—but give me giant sequoia trees, and I shrink away at the enormity of it all. (I feel the same about Yosemite.)

So even though I've been spending 6-8 hours a day on my book—in addition to working full-time—I took the opportunity to join some friends who were headed up north to Sequoia-Kings Canyon for the weekend. 

Their main draw? Touring Crystal Cave after its four-year closure.

There are a few magic phrases in this life that can make me spring into action, like saying "Open Sesame" to a secret passage door hidden in a bookcase. One of them is "never open to the public," and another is "reopened after being closed."

Needless to say, I didn't think twice.

 

A number of natural factors caused the public tours of the cave to cease—first, the 2021 KNP Complex fire, and then the winter storms of 2023. Up until then, it was the only publicly accessible cave in the combined national parks of Sequoia and Kings Canyon. 

 

 

Photo Essay: Beasts, Bagpipes, and Very Good Boys at Idyllwild's 4th of July Parade

I'd been wanting to go to the Idyllwild 4th of July Parade ever since the Idyll-Beast himself told me he marches in it every year.

Besides, I love a good small-town celebration of Independence Day—so a friend and I set out into the San Jacinto Mountains to watch the festivities on "the Hill," under the shadow of Tahquitz Rock.

Photo Essay: The Uphill Battle at Sequoia National Park's Moro Rock

"We're doing what?!"

That might not be what I said out loud, but it certainly was what I was thinking. 

We'd spent the day driving from LA to Sequoia National Park—and I was already battling altitude sickness just from the little walk to the General Sherman giant sequoia tree.

But it wasn't my trip—I wasn't in charge of the schedule, which is how I wanted it—so I had no choice. 

We were going to climb Moro Rock to watch the sunset.

 

Not to be confused with Morro Rock near San Luis Obispo, Moro Rock in Central California's Sequoia park is a dome-shaped granite rock formation that's more for hikers than rock climbers. 

Photo Essay: Nevada's Home of the 'Miracle Metal' That Helped the Allied Forces Win World War II

For as many times as I've visited Las Vegas, I still have a lot to learn about the Las Vegas Valley—and Southern Nevada as a whole. 

That's one of the reasons I like traveling for the annual "Home + History" weekend sponsored by Nevada Preservation Foundation—whose events have taken me to unexpected places on the Strip, just off the Strip, on Fremont Street, and even to nearby Boulder City. 

This year, the one big draw for me was the historic bus tour of Henderson, now Nevada's second-largest city. 

While Boulder City had the Hoover Dam to thank for its founding, Henderson had something completely different: magnesium.

In fact, although Henderson wasn't incorporated until 1953—named after Nevada Senator Charles Belknap Henderson—it began over a decade before that as the "Basic Townsite," home of Basic Magnesium, Inc. (BMI).

And the bus tour I'd driven five and a half hours for, which was co-presented by Nevada Preservation Foundation and Henderson Historical Society, took us through the old BMI plant.

 

I Could Write a Book

[Last updated 8/29/25 10:38 AM PT to update the book cover and revise the book team.]

I've been a professional writer since I was a senior in high school (and broke a national news story). But since then, I've aways written short pieces—newspaper and magazine articles, essays, blog posts, poems, short stories, and the like. 

I always knew I wanted to publish a book sometime in my future, but I wasn't sure if I could actually write something that... long. And besides, I haven't been able to figure out what the story would be—and where the story would end. 

But then in 2022, I answered a call for help put out by The Los Angeles Breakfast Club: It wanted to publish a history book for its 2025 centennial, and it was looking for writers to pitch in. 

The club was lucky enough to have a few published authors among its ranks—including me, but also those who'd actually written books before. But in the end, those writers had other things going on in their lives and careers. And I was the last man standing, as it were.

It was really the perfect scenario for me: I would be brought on to make the words, but I would be part of a team that would also include Club Historian Rachel Skytt, who would handle most of the heavy lifting when it came to research and crafting the overall narrative of the book. 

With someone else to outline the book and each of its individual sections, I didn't have to worry so much about structure—something I'm not really trained on doing when it comes to long-form writing—and could just focus on wordsmithing. 

The only original research I'd really have to do—besides some fact-checking and contextualizing based on what was going on in the world and in Los Angeles in the early- to mid-20th century—would be to interview current members who'd been around long enough to remember the club when it was hanging on by a thin strand of bacon fat.

Photo Essay: LA's Underdog Basketball Team Gets a Billion-Dollar Dome

There have been lots of new stadiums and arenas popping up all over—and the Los Angeles-adjacent city of Inglewood is home to two of them. 

I already toured SoFi Stadium in 2021, shortly after it opened. And now it was time to tour its neighbor, the $1.8-billion Intuit Dome.*

It opened in August 2024 as the new home to the Los Angeles Clippers, the NBA team that used to have the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena all to themselves (and later shared the Staples Center with the team that usually overshadows them, the LA Lakers).

Photo Essay: The Glorious Human-Powered Sculptures of the Kinetic Grand Championship

Why fly to Sacramento and drive five hours to Arcata, California in Memorial Day Weekend traffic?

To spectate the Kinetic Grand Championship, of course!

This kinetic sculpture race goes back the year 1969, when artist Hobart Brown raced a souped-up version of his kid's tricycle in the town of Ferndale, California. 

Now, it's expanded into a three-day, all-terrain event — and there are kinetic races in other cities across the country, like Ventura, California and Baltimore, Maryland. 

 

It's called the "Triathalon of the Art World"—but to me, the land, water, and sand races sound more like a Tough Mudder obstacle course. 

Photo Essay: The 'Tunnel Tree' of the Northern California Redwoods

We were driving three hours south to Fort Bragg from Arcata, California, where we'd spent the night to watch the lineup of the Kinetic Grand Championship races in the morning. 

Our next stop was to ride the Skunk Train. 

But after we twisted and turned down the 101 South (a.k.a. the Redwood Highway), following the course of the Eel River's South Fork, we turned onto Highway 1 and saw a sign that caught our eye.

 

"Drive-Thru Tree?!" I exclaimed. And my passengers all chimed in, "Can we go?!"

Photo Essay: A Springtime Make-Good at Tejon Ranch

It was a disappointing spring for wildflowers. The only ones I'd seen were along Highway 178 between Inyokern and Lake Elizabeth—and I hadn't had much time to stop and enjoy them during my drive.

So when I was invited to once again tour Tejon Ranch, I was hopeful I'd see some spring blooms. After all, some of the best wildflower displays I've ever seen have been there. 

Then again, I've also seen Tejon Ranch totally brown and dried up. So there were no guarantees.

 

I was pleasantly surprised what awaited us. No superbloom by any means, but plenty of color in a feast for the eyes, like the red penstemon...

Photo Essay: No Better Place to 'B' in Vegas Than the Bellagio Conservatory in Spring

People always ask me, "What is there good to do in Las Vegas?"

 

And the first thing I always tell them is the Bellagio Conservatory. "It's different every time!" I say. 

Photo Essay: Kustomized Cars in Vegas, Courtesy of "The Count"

Every time I visit Vegas, I never have enough time to do all the things I want to do. 

And during this last visit, I wasn't feeling well and it was raining—so that really curtailed the amount of adventures I could have. 

But it gave me the opportunity to do an indoor activity that wouldn't require much energy on my part: take the free tour at Count's Kustoms car shop. 

Photo Essay: May Showers Bring Cactus Flowers

"The cacti are probably in bloom around now," my friend said. And until then, it had never really occurred to me to go to the Ethel M. Chocolates Factory Cactus Garden in Henderson, Nevada during the day.

After all, it's so magical at night during the holiday season. What else could there be?

 

But after taking a morning bus tour of Henderson and an afternoon walking tour of the Hoover Dam, I was looking for a little zen on my way back to Vegas. 

Photo Essay: Silver City, A Ghost Town Made of Pieces of Other Ghost Towns

When I first moved to California, some places just seemed so far away. It was impossible for me to wrap my head around making a day trip to Joshua Tree or Palm Springs—a three-hour drive each way. But over the past 14 years, my home state has continued to feel smaller and smaller, easier and easier to tackle. 

In April 2014, I made a detour from the Eastern Sierra to try to see Silver City Ghost Town in Bodfish, California, located in the Kern River Valley of the Southern Sierra. I'd gotten there too late in the day to catch it before it closed or to even photograph it in daylight. And it just seemed so out-of-the-way that it took me 11 years to try again. 

 

This time, I planned my trip a little better and got an earlier start, as I headed home from the early-morning Burro Run I'd attended in Indian Wells Canyon. 

Photo Essay: Donkeys Hauling Ass at California's Run With the Burros

Ever since I read the memoir Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero, I've been interested in witnessing burro racing. That's when runners take to the trail with a donkey for a man-versus-man/animal-versus-animal competition—one that's popular in Arizona, Colorado, and now California.

I had my chance this weekend thanks to the non-profit California Breakfast Burritos, which has been focused on bringing pack burro races back to the Golden State since its founding in 2018. 

 

There's a long tradition of burro racing among 19th-century miners—locally, in Randsburg, Death Valley, and the Eastern Sierra communities. But this version has been around since 1949, when it was used as a marketing gimmick to bring tourism to declining mining communities (and to find a use for those working burros the miners left behind). 

 

A Load Off

It had been hanging over me for too many years—in retrospect, more than I ever thought it would. 

I stopped talking to my parents in January 2007 (I think, I don't remember exactly). At least, that's the last time I ever called them. And they just never called me back. 

But since then, I'd been wondering whether they'd ever try reaching out, try making amends. I thought that on my mother's deathbed, she might find God—truly find God, not that fake cult crap she put us through—and finally apologize. 

I've thought about her death a lot over the years, mostly because I've always known she always wanted to die. She constantly threatened death—either in a passive way, that ol' "Since this may be my last Christmas..." gag, or in an active way, openly fantasizing about drowning herself in the bathtub. 

After all, her physical health was pretty terrible—something I was acutely aware of as far back as third grade. And her mental anguish? Way before that, as far back as I can remember.

So I couldn't help but be curious as to when it would happen, how it would happen, how I would feel, what my dad would do. 

How would I even find out that she had died? And what would happen if my dad died first?

My parents eating cake at their wedding reception, May 4, 1973*

Well, many of those questions have now been answered. My mother died on March 3, 2025. I found out on March 11, when my cousin called me after the funeral service. 

Photo Essay: Wallace Neff's Once-Affordable Bubble House Hits An Inflated Real Estate Market

Los Angeles has been experiencing a housing shortage for decades—with many of the new residential structures being built offering a larger proportion of luxury housing than affordable units. And that shortage has worsened in the wake of the January 2025 wildfires that wiped out nearly the entire communities of Altadena and the Pacific Palisades.

There was a severe need for housing in the U.S. in the 1940s, too—with building materials being rationed for the war effort and then all those soldiers coming home after World War II and starting families with much enthusiasm (launching the "baby boom" generation). 

Back during the war, one answer to that housing shortage was offered by architect Wallace Neff: the Airform house, which could be constructed in just two days.

All it took was to cover a giant balloon (made of rubberized nylon) with chicken wire and spray it with concrete (a.k.a. gunite). Deflate the balloon and boom, you've got a house—or, as it was called, a "Bubble House."

 

Despite their speed and affordability, fewer than 3000 Bubble Houses (or "Balloon Houses") were built in this country. Only one of them remains, built at a cost of $16,000—and it just went on the market for a whopping $1.85 million. 

Photo Essay: Light and Space in William Cody's Palm Springs Home

When I was in Palm Springs last month for Modernism Week, I missed the opportunity to visit the Cody Family Residence, which artist Phillip K. Smith III had taken over with a temporary, site-specific installation of his light and space sculptures.

It was a one-time event that was happening just days after I'd be leaving Palm Springs. And my schedule didn't allow me to return so soon. 

Fortunately, the PKSIII installation is taking reservations through April 5—so a month later, I made my way back to the Coachella Valley just to see it. 

And it was worth the trip. 

 

Photo Essay: Disney Imagineers Are Building a Town Near Palm Springs, Called Cotino

To be honest, I signed up for a tour of Cotino—"A Storyliving by Disney™ Community"—in Rancho Mirage, California during this year's Modernism Week because it was free.

 

 

It wasn't until I got to its sales office that I realized they might actually try to sell me one of the homes where "the Disney touch is at the heart of it all."

Photo Essay: Happy Swallows Day ( ¡Felicidades para la Fiesta de las Golondrinas! )

When you go shopping at Ortega's Trading Post in San Juan Capistrano, you get a free copy of the "Swallow Story," the tale of the local birds known as cliff swallows.

It goes like this:

"With the arrival of early dawn on St. Joseph's Day, the little birds begin to arrive and begin rebuilding their mud nests, which are clinging to the ruins of the old stone church of San Juan Capistrano...

After the summer spent within the sheltered walls of the Old Mission in San Juan Capistrano, the swallows take flight again, and on the Day of San Juan, October 23, they leave to return to their winter home in Goya, Argentina after circling the Mission bidding farewell to the 'Jewel of All Missions.'"

Legend has it that in the early 20th century, swallows had become such a nuisance to the townspeople that a shopkeeper started knocking down their nests with a broom. 

The pastor of the Mission at the time, Father St. John O'Sullivan, wrote in his story Capistrano Nights that he called out to them: 

"Come on swallows, I'll give you shelter. 

Come to the Mission. 

There's room enough there for all." 

Thus, celebrating the Return of the Swallows on St. Joseph's Day, March 19, has been an annual tradition at Mission San Juan Capistrano since the 1920s. 

And now, the Swallows Day Parade—held on the following Saturday—just celebrated its 65th year. (It had to skip 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic; and it had to go on without horses due to an equine virus outbreak in 2022.)

Photo Essay: The Long Goodbye to Pacific Dining Car

I hadn't yet written about the 2020 closure of one of my favorite LA institutions, Pacific Dining Car, because I was in denial. I thought once the COVID-19 pandemic was over, really over, it might reopen.

 

Photo Essay: Barnstorming for Battery-Powered Flight at Santa Monica Airport

The first flight to circumnavigate the globe took off from and returned to an airport right here in the Los Angeles area: Clover Field, now known as Santa Monica Airport. 

 

Photo Essay: The Huntington's Japanese Garden and Its 320-Year-Old Transplant

After all of the times I'd been to The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, there was one major area I'd never seen: the Japanese Garden, added by Henry Huntington to his then-private estate in 1912.

That is, until I finally got to visit in November 2023. (Sorry it's taken me so long to share my experience!)

 

 

Photo Essay: In Search of a Desert Modernist's Legacy at Batman's Former Palm Springs Home

The Old Las Palmas neighborhood began in the 1920s as a simple subdivision of Palm Springs, California, but it became one of the premiere residential neighborhoods of the desert getaway city. 

It's been home for the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Kirk Douglas, Dinah Shore, Donna Reed, Liberace, and many more stars—and word has it, it's got the most celebrity homes of all the Palm Springs neighborhoods. 

During Modernism Week, I headed to Old Las Palmas to get inside the former residence of actor Adam West, best known for portraying Batman on the 1960s TV series.

Photo Essay: This Mid-Century Palm Springs Estate Shines With or Without Its Howard Hughes History

Every year, it's overwhelming to go through the Modernism Week schedule and try to figure out which tours to take. 

I'll admit, I get lazy and sometimes just choose based on a certain amount of star power. I haven't yet gone wrong with the Frank Sinatra, Kirk Douglas, William Holden, or Gummo Marx estates. 

 

But the Howard Hughes Residence in Palm Springs has a lot more to offer than just a celebrity pedigree of an eccentric aerospace engineer and movie mogul.

Photo Essay: 85 Years of The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank

There are five main movie production studios in Los Angeles, and only four of them give studio tours: Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony, and Universal. I'd visited them all (plus some smaller ones like the Fox lot, which didn't allow photos) except one—and the one holdout was the one that provides extremely limited public access.

Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. 

Photo Essay: Crazy for Planes at Mojave Air & Space Port

I've long been fascinated with the Mojave Air & Space Port, the home of Virgin Galactic and just a stone's throw away from Edwards Air Force Base.

 

I've skulked around the airport a bit in the past, but I always wanted to go to its monthly "Plane Crazy" event, which would give a little closer access to the runway (and maybe get a better view of the airplane graveyard). I've had it on my calendar for years and years.

Photo Essay: A Louisiana Bayou Boat Ride, No Gators in Sight

I couldn't imagine going to New Orleans for the first time and not taking a swamp tour.

Even though it had snowed 10 inches just three days before I arrived. Even though it was winter and it would be too cold for the alligators to be out in the water. (Instead, they're burrowing in some mud somewhere for heat.)

Fortunately, I was traveling with a group who wanted to do the same.
 

Photo Essay: The Big Easy, By Mule

I've never taken a horse-drawn carriage ride from one of the buggies in Central Park, even though I lived in New York City for 14 years. 

But I'll admit it's a nice way to explore a place, whether it's en caleche in Morocco or in a more yee-haw fashion in the California desert.

 

So when I saw carriages gliding along the snow-melted streets of New Orleans last weekend, I was intrigued. And then I found out they were pulled not by horses, but by mules (which can withstand the heat and humidity better)—and I knew I had to take a ride.

Photo Essay: The Oldest and Most Haunted Cemetery in New Orleans

New Orleans is one of those rare cities that's just as famous for its burial grounds as it is for its living traditions.

So when our early morning swamp tour got postponed for a couple of hours last weekend, I didn't go back to bed. I went to the graveyard.