Art Tour (Day 3) Huntington Gardens and the LACMA

Disneyland was amazing, but the kids really came for the art and experience, so it was fun to go view something new. We got up and packed the bus and were on the road by 9. Our first stop was Huntington Gardens. I have never been there and have only vaguely heard of it. The place was amazing!! So many different gardens and some museums as well. We saw a ton of stuff.

DESERT GARDENS - There were so many different types of cacti and succulents. It makes me think that our world has alien plants. Amazing what you can find. It was awesome.

Look closely at this tree. It was covered in spikes. Even on the branches. I'm assuming it doesn't want any birds or animals eating its leaves or bark.

LILY PAD GARDEN - This area was so peaceful. The ponds were full of Koi that came right up to say Hi. Cutie fish. There were turtles basking as well. I could have spent a long time in this area.

PALM GARDEN - We just walked through this quickly on our way to the jungle garden.

JUNGLE GARDEN - It was like being in a jungle, go figure. I love all the strange roots and plants growing right on another tree. Is it my imagination or is the air better from all the plants giving off oxygen?

EUROPEAN ART MUSEUM - Next to the museum was a really cool tree with many blossoms hanging down. The whole tree was covered in bees. It was really hard to catch a picture of a bee.

The building was amazing. It housed some of the collections of Arabella and Henry Huntington (the founders of the gardens). I read some info about them. She was Henry’s uncle’s widow. They married later in life and built this awesome place. They died only a little more than a decade after marrying. Their taste in art was very European, but I loved the building details and carved walls.

Also interesting how most art stays in good condition, but tapestries become so faded. So sad because you can see how much work went into them. There were little samples of what people used to dye the fabric in tapestries. You can see how over time, some colors do better than others.

I found one of my favorite pictures there. Simpy a girl’s face, but beautiful.

ROSE GARDEN - We just walked through this area. It was February and there were no roses. (although oddly there were roses in other places in the park.) but you could tell it would be amazing in the summer. Seriously epic with all the different kinds. One was named Disneyland. I wonder what it would look like.

JAPANESE GARDENS - I wish we could have explored more here. There were the iconic bridges that were so steep, they have steps. (And more koi.)

There was a rock garden and a whole area of bonsai trees.

CHINESE GARDENS - Right next door were the Chinese gardens. We saw a lot of pretty flowers on the paths in between gardens. Basically the whole place was amazing no matter where you were walking.

I think I liked the Chinese garden area just a bit more than the Japanese, although both were splendid. There were pagodas and a lake. The architecture was awesome. The archways were inspiring. I loved them. The paths and terrace area has a similar style on the ground.

It smelled so good because there was a restaurant there. Jazmin bought lunch so Robyn and I could eat our sandwiches there. But she let us try her beef noodle bowl. Delicious and spicy! Loved it. Can’t wait to get my braces off.

BOTANICAL CENTER - This was a rain forest area with misters and dripping water. It was so cool.

We walked around and learned a lot about plants. Recognize these plants? I actually learned about and saw my first cacao plant on Dora. Yes, even she can be educational.

I loved the section that talked about spices. They would give clues and you would smell the spice and then guess what it was. I correctly identified them all. Coffee beans, cacao, vanilla, and cinnamon. All from the rainforest.

There were sciency interactive stuff all over with microscopes and questions and activities. It was really neat. There were plenty of carnivorous plants to look at; from pitcher plants to venus fly traps. Feed me Seymour.

AMERICAN ART - We briefly stopped to look at the American Art. I was underwhelmed. I’m not sure I liked anything except the furniture. Art can be so strange.

GIFT SHOP - We were running out of time and we only had 5 minutes for the gift shop which was a shame because they had tons of stuff. It would have been a fun place to look for gifts for the kids, but I missed it. Oh well. Back to the bus and we were barely on time. If you ever end up in the L.A. area, go check out the Huntington Gardens. There was so much more to see. We only explored a portion of it all.

From there, we went to the L.A.C.M.A. (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) This had some very interesting pieces. Outside, there were the iconic lamp posts. I liked those. I think it is great for an Art museum to have an identifying feature outside. Only one like it in the world.

Also outside was the levitated mass. Pretty cool for a Great. Big. Rock. (Reference Tulio) They had to take down stoplights and bring in multiple cranes to get it there. It cost millions of dollars but now it is another distinguishing feature. Yes, it is just a large rock hanging there over a walkway. Don't stand underneath during earthquakes.

Inside was a large exhibit by Julie Mehretu. She isn’t my jam. It is artistic chaos and I know it means something to the artist but often it just looks like scribbles and color to me. I enjoyed a few pieces, but one piece just looked like doodles. (Perhaps I'm a hypocrite. I enjoy Robyn's doodles.)

We also saw Richard Serra’s manmade slot canyon. The curves of the steel were pretty cool. It was all one piece standing there and it sure took up a lot of space.

There was some art by Barbara Kruger behind an elevator. The elevator was huge and when it went down, you could view the art behind it. I think they missed a great opportunity. They should have made it so you could view the art while you went down or up inside the elevator.

Another piece I really liked was a whole city built with running vehicles. The cars and trains all zoomed around. It was so interesting to watch. You could go above and look down. My favorite part was that almost all the buildings had some reflective surface on them. There were fun pops of shiny everywhere. It is hard to tell from the pictures. It doesn't run all the time, so we were lucky to catch it in motion.

By far the best was Dolto Su’s fabric house. He loved his apartment so much that he recreated the whole thing by sewing it. All the details were there from outlets to thermostats, to coils on the stove top. It was fantastic. You had to take turns walking through. It was crazy cool. It is described as a physical manifestation of memory. We took a lot of pictures, but I think you will enjoy these.

Robyn found squirrels all day. All through the day she would stop and yell...SQUIRREL! Just like Dug from UP! It was cute. We saw plenty at the gardens and more at the L.A.C.M.A.

When we left, it was finally getting dark. All the lamp posts were lit up. What a fun piece of art.

We drove to dinner after that. It was a longer drive through a lot of traffic. At one point, the bus turned onto a bridge and the back tire didn’t seem to make it. There was a jolt and some scraping. Yikes. Bart was talking with his family and suddenly he couldn’t concentrate since we were all worried the bus would fall. Spoiler: We didn't die. But guess what I saw on the bus the next morning?

Wonder if that comes out of Mark's pay?

We arrived at a Mall for dinner. There was a food court but Robyn wasn’t feeling it so we walked down the street looking for other places. We tried Panera and Ike’s but Robyn still wasn’t feeling it. She and I were both a little queasy from the ride. We kept walking and stopped on a corner next to the Shake Shak. Robyn wasn’t sure she wanted that either, but when she saw Bart and Sam inside, it worked for us. We just got one meal and split it. One burger, fries, and a cookie butter shake. All tasty although there was a hint of cinnamon in the shake. No cinnamon people! I wish I had taken a picture of dinner. It was yummy.

From there, we went to the hotel and checked in. Lots of the kids went swimming. I went down to play games and was joined by Jazmin, Robyn, Sam, and Bart. Later Katherine too.

We played Point Salad first. Super cute game. Pick up veggies or point cards. I thought I was doing terribly and then I only lost by 2 points to Bart. That is a game I want to get.

We played STUFF HAPPENS. Sam didn’t love it. Probably because he didn’t agree with the cards but also because he didn’t get many. Bart won again.

Then we tried Mau but it was a bit of a failure. Sam was totally goofy and talked the whole time. He had a nice stack of cards by the end. Bart kept arguing that the game would be better if you told everyone the original rules. I disagree. That isn’t how you play and it isn’t meant to be mean. Everyone earns their way in and feels good when they figure it out. I’m holding my opinion on this one. It almost felt like an argument but I didn’t mind. You don’t have to agree with me...even if I’m right.

Then off to bed. I checked in with all my girls and Karol’s since she went to bed early. I feel bad because one room went to bed early but I had to wake them up for visual confirmation. Sorry ladies. Did you make it through this really long post or just look at the 62 pictures? Either way is fine with me.