I headed out on Thursday on a road trip down to the Tiny House Fest in Del Mar. My first stop was at Philz to get a coffee – I got on the road very early in order to miss the incoming storm. At Philz there were a couple of guys wearing shorts and ordering iced coffees, strange because it was about 45° outside! Turns out they were headed to Arizona to go to spring training and the weather there was predicted to be in the high 70s. I managed to miss all of the bad weather, in fact, it was quite a pleasant drive down, the sky was slightly overcast and traffic was light. There was still a pretty decent amount of snow on the mountains on the Grapevine. By the time I reached Burbank, it was 75° and sunny, what a contrast to the cold temps of last few months.
I stopped in Burbank to check out the ‘Art Candy’ machine – during the pandemic a local artist re-purposed a vending machine into an art gallery. She invites other artists to create small works of art and sells them for five dollars each through the vending machine in her driveway. There’s also lots of her own artwork hanging on the fence. it was such a cool invention, I ended up buying three different pieces of art and met the creator, Stephanie, on my visit! She took a picture of me with the art I purchased so she could send it to the artists as they rarely get to see who purchases their art. I just love this idea!
Since I’d been in the car for a while and the weather was so nice, I went for a walk in the neighborhood and discovered several free little libraries, including one that had dozens of bricks that were painted to look like book covers. What a talented artist!
Later I met up with my niece Alea at a shopping mall in Chino Hills, since I was going to be camping at the local state park for a couple of nights. We took a quick side trip to an Egyptian pyramid! Apparently there were plans to open an Egyptian restaurant in this mall and the owners had completed the façade, all four sides built to look like the temples at Abu Simbel, when the pandemic hit and they never got to finishing the inside. I hope somebody does eventually make use of this fun building.
After catching up with Alea, I set off for the campground. Because there was rain in the forecast for the next day the campground was relatively empty, only two other campsites besides mine were occupied. The campground itself is a 3 mile drive from the entrance to the state park and the gates are locked at night, so it was very quiet and peaceful in the campground. The hills were a bright emerald green, something I’m guessing is unusual for that area. The trails were all closed because of recent rains, I guess when they get more than a quarter inch of rain the trails become very muddy and slippery. Luckily, there is a lot you can see from the paved road. There were wildflowers visible, mainly lupine and some poppies. I was able to head up a fire road before dusk to get a better look around. The frogs and crickets were very vocal, and unfortunately, I could still hear the light hum of traffic and frequent airplanes traveling overhead.
The rain started lightly in the early morning, and I lucked out when there was a break in the rain long enough for me to heat up my coffee. I made sure my rainfly was secure and headed out for a day of exploration. My first stop was the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies at Cal Poly Pomona. During my research on sustainability careers, I read about the masters program on regenerative studies that they have here. Though none of the buildings were open, I was able to walk around the Center and learn about the different ways they have for incorporated sustainability and re-used materials into the campus. After that I stopped at the campus farm store, which had lots of locally grown produce and other goodies.
At that point it was raining pretty steadily so I wanted to find something indoors to do. I found nearby the American Museum of Ceramic Art which happened to have an exhibit on women ceramicists in California. I am so glad I stumbled on this wonderful little museum! The exhibit was educational and interesting, and I was so impressed with the work of these women artists. Everything from the fluid movement of the sculptural pieces to the extreme realism of other pieces was fascinating.
The museum also had an exhibit of Mettlach ceramics from a local collector. I was especially drawn to the pieces that were similar to Wedgwood pottery.
By the time I got back to the campground, it had been raining steadily all day, luckily, the inside of my tent was relatively dry, so I spent the evening reading and listening to the rain drum above my head.
