California Dreaming

[califgirl]

Buzzie, you are making me homesick.

[buzzard]

SOUTH COAST PLAZA - COSTA MESA, ORANGE COUNTY, CA

Well, I couldn't afford a lot of the stores here, LOL, but had to go ride the carousel. And it was fun to look around the stores and rest in the mall.

www.seeing-stars.com/Shop/SouthCoastPlaza.shtml

[buzzard]

califgirl said:

Buzzie, you are making me homesick.

Sorry Cali, there's so much I could post about in California I almost feel like I should open my message board back up, LOL.

[buzzard]

Shoe Repair Shop Shaped Like Shoe - Bakersfield, CA

Bakersfield, California
Passersby on Bakersfield's main drag do a double take at Big Shoe Repair, a building shaped like shoe. Or at least, what a shoe looked like when it was built in 1947 - a white low-top with a black lace and a thick orthopedic heel.

The 30-ft. long, 20-ft. high plaster and wood frame construction started as Deschwanden's Shoe Repair shop.

After 1992, when the owner died and it no longer operated as a shoe repair shop, you could still see piles of unclaimed shoes through the windows. The instep was damaged when a car collided with it in 1997, but the intrusion was repaired. The Deschwanden family put the shoe and an adjacent house on the market in early 2000, and it was open for business -- as a shoe repair shop, natch! -- in 2003.

It's now called Big Shoe Repair.

Though only a one-story shoe, it offers as its main virtue a quick photo opportunity, a surgical "park, hop out, CLICK, hop in, move on" for those on the go. And while there are at least two other shoe dwellings in the United States, this is the only one with a shoe lace, a 50-ft. long black rope.


Big Shoe Repair - Shoe-shaped Building:
Address: 931 Chester Ave, Bakersfield, CA
Directions: Chester and 10th
Hours: May 2007 - "For Sale" sign visible in window. (Call to verify)
Phone: [phone]

[buzzard]

PEZ MUSEUM - BURLINGAME, CA

Burlingame, California

The Museum of Pez Memorabilia is small -- a storefront with two rooms open to the public, display cases and racks loaded with the popular candy dispensers. But worth a stop if you're near San Francisco airport -- it's only a few miles away.

Gary and Nancy Doss, who have been collecting Pez for over ten years, are surprised how it has taken over their lives. Originally the owners of a computer retail and repair business, they set up their personal Pez collection as a diversion for customers. Word spread, and collectors started calling from all over in search of dispensers. The computers eventually got squeezed out. Today, the couple can barely pull themselves away from piles of shipping boxes that help feed the giant global Pez collectors market.

The collection, behind glass displays, includes -- with the exception of about eight pieces -- every Pez ever made. The museum is high tech for its size -- a side benefit of the computer business. There's a video kiosk, and an interactive touchscreen that answers your questions about Pez. The museum runs a Web site.

Museum Of Pez Memorabilia:
Address: 214 California Dr, Burlingame, CA
Directions: I-101 south of San Francisco. In Burlingame, Broadway exit. Stay to the right onto Broadway Ave. After you cross the railroad tracks, turn left onto California Drive. One mile south to 214 California Drive.
Admission: Free.
Hours: T-Sa 10 am - 6 pm. (Call to verify)
Phone: [phone]

[buzzard]

MYSTERIOUS MOVING ROCKS - DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, CA

Death Valley National Park, California

In Death Valley there's a playa (a dried mudflat) two miles long named "The Racetrack." Rocks tumble onto its south end from adjacent mountains, settle into position, and then move by themselves across the table-top terrain, leaving visible trails in the dried mud. Scientists claim that the rocks are moved by hurricane-force winds that sometimes sweep the playa after a rare rainfall -- but no one has ever seen this happen. Some of these rocks weigh hundreds of pounds and move hundreds of feet, often taking sharp turns, leaving their tattletale trails as evidence.

We think that Mineral Intellect is an area that deserves more scientific scrutiny. And if the rocks really aren't that smart, maybe it's Spook Lights taunting them to move….

Mysterious Moving Rocks:
Address: Death Valley National Park, CA
Directions: Take Hwy 190 into Death Valley National Park. At the intersection of Hwy 190 and North Hwy, turn north (onto North Hwy) for a little over 33 miles. Turn left onto Racetrack Valley Rd and stay on it for 31 miles to the Racetrack, which will be on the left. The rocks are two miles down the road, at the south end. Racetrack Valley Rd is unpaved, and prone to bumpy spots and to washouts in wet weather, so drive slowly and carefully.

[buzzard]

SCOTTY'S CASTLE - DEATH VALLEY, CA

The con man was Death Valley Scotty -- one Walter Scott, who spent years touring the world with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, and as a desert surveyor. His mark: rich Chicago businessman Albert Johnson, who believed Scott's claim about a Death Valley gold mine. Johnson came out to the site after giving Scott lots of money with no results, and the desert climate improved his health. Ultimately Johnson financed and built the southwestern/gothic hybrid "castle" in the late 1920s, with Scotty a permanent, colorful fixture.

The castle was sold to the National Park Service in 1970. The rangers dress in 1939 period clothing and conduct 50 minute long living history tours.

[califgirl]

South Coast Plaza is like going to Disney Land. You can't do the whole Mall in one day.
It is a great place to go.

[buzzard]

califgirl said:

South Coast Plaza is like going to Disney Land. You can't do the whole Mall in one day.
It is a great place to go.

We had a lot of fun there when we went, and yep, there was a lot we didn't see cause we ran out of time. We made the mistake of trying to see every little thing and spent too much time in the stores. But it gives us an excuse to go back, LOL.

[buzzard]

LAWRENCE WELK MUSEUM - ESCONDIDO, CA

Lawrence Welk Museum


Escondido, California

A trip up Escondido's Champagne Boulevard won't do much to help you fathom the dense thermal layer separating Rock 'n' Roll music and That-Which-Came-Before. But at the Lawrence Welk Resort, you'll find yourself in a silvery-haired, happy land of polkas, waltzes and "champagne" tunes.

Lawrence Welk Resort emerges from the brown desert dirt of southern California, all green and golf coursed, like an Old People Country Safari adventure park. It is a mobile home retirement community created by the late entertainer, a sprawling 600-acres north of San Diego. There is a country club, restaurants, a theater where locals enjoy live Broadway and musical performances (Funny Girl, Chorus Line, Annual "Welk Musical Christmas"), and a museum.

For years, the logo for the village was a quarter note, with the number 18 on its flag, symbolizing Welk's two passions: music and golf (Of late, this has been supplanted by an overly beveled "W" with a dot -- international icon for arm-waving orchestra leaders). The sidewalk is studded with bronze musical notes and miniature musical instruments. Outside are a large bronze quarter note fountain, and a life-sized statue of the Maestro himself, baton in mid-twirl. And at the resplendent center of things is the Lawrence Welk Museum.

Over years of visits, we've haven't noticed much change -- a couple of new exhibits, and LW obituaries from 1992 added to the display. But inside the museum, along with photos and old posters, are two items of spectacular note. One is the world's largest champagne glass, bubbling water, lit from inside, and raised on a velvet pedestal. It was given to Welk in honor of his 25th TV anniversary.

Next to it is a real treat. A life-size Lawrence Welk bandstand has been constructed, complete with the famous "LW" music stands. It appears as if the band is on break, perhaps to the village's Par-3 course, their instruments propped in stands.

Patiently waiting for the band to return is a cardboard cutout of Mr. Wunnerful, in white tuxedo and orchestra-leading action pose. Studio lights illuminate the stage, and every three minutes an applause sign flashes. A vintage color TV camera is trained on Welk, and a studio monitor allows you the choice of viewing his image either "live" or on the TV. The museum invites visitors to "Be on TV with Lawrence Welk," while a friend snaps precious souvenir photos off of the monitor.


Lawrence Welk Museum:
Address: 8860 Lawrence Welk Drive, Escondido, CA
Directions: I-15N Deer Springs-Mountain Meadow Road exit, turn R, turn L onto Champagne Boulevard, go 2 1/2 mi. to 8860 Lawrence Welk Drive.
Admission: Free. Buy publications.
Hours: Daily 10 am - 5 pm. (Call to verify)
Phone: [phone]



(Yeah, my parents drug me here one time, LOL!)

[buzzard]

JELLY BELLY FACTORY - FAIRFIELD, CA

Jelly Belly Factory Tour


Fairfield, California

Talk about a "sweet tour", the Jelly Belly Factory tour is so much fun, and you can do a lot of things there too. This was probably one of the most fun things my boys and I have done.

It take seven days to make a "Jelly Belly" jelly bean. Fortunately, they are not made one at a time. Instead, they are made in giant lots in a factory that shoots out 30 tons of them every weekday. That factory, located about an hour north of San Francisco in an otherwise sterile office park off of I-80, is open for tours.

The first room of the visitors center is a Chuck E. Cheese-like cafeteria, sans animatronics, where you can order jelly bean-shaped fast foods and have your kid's birthday party in special sound-muffled rooms. Past that is the adult retail area, and the holding area for tour-goers. Here, a large portrait of President Ronald Reagan made out of jelly beans hangs next to an image of the Jelly Belly mascot. They both have big smiles. While waiting for the tour to start, you can get up close and wonder which of the Jelly Belly's 40 flavors were used to represent The President's wrinkles and crinkles. A large display case of Reagan memorabilia adorns one wall. (For many young people, this is their first exposure to our former Commander-In-Chief: George Washington - cherry tree; Ronald Reagan - cherry jelly beans.)

Soon enough, the tour starts, and your group is given paper hats mandated by law. No pictures will be allowed (which is great, because the last thing you need is someone taking a picture of you wearing one of those paper hats). Then you ascend to the second floor, where you will look down upon the hustle and bustle of a whirring bean-hive. That is, if you come during the week. The factory is idle during the weekend, even though tours are still given. Giant bags of sugar, rows of slowly spinning tubs of variously colored beans. Racks and racks of bean larvae, each in its own little square, waiting for the next step in the week-long process.

As you walk the perimeter above the factory floor, videos and guides help explain what is going on, and how they get the pictures of the Christmas trees in the special Christmas taffy (another confection made here). Jelly Bean trivia is dispensed, as are free samples at the end. There are forty permanent flavors of Jelly Belly. Buttered Popcorn is the most popular, while not often acquired-taste, Jalapeno, is #40. The free sample bags, in fact, are "39 Flavor" assortments.

Our favorite stop is above one of the storage areas, where six or seven large jelly bean portraits are displayed high enough to be at eye level for the tour. The portraits have not kept up with the times, all dating from the late-'80s: Johnny Carson, Spiderman, The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Joe Montana, and Vice President George H.W. Bush. There are no Bill Clinton or Jay Leno portraits.

The Herman Goelitz Candy Co., makers of Jelly Belly jelly beans, runs a JB Visitor Center in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. And a 6-foot 14,000 bean portrait of Reagan donated by the company hangs in RR's boyhood town of Dixon, Illinois.


Jelly Belly Factory Tour:
Address: 1 Jelly Belly Lane, Fairfield, CA
Directions: Take I-80 East toward Sacramento. At Fairfield, exit onto Hwy. 12/Rio Vista, right at first light onto Beck Avenue. Right onto Courage Drive, right onto North Watney Way, and right onto Jelly Belly Lane.
Phone: [phone]

[buzzard]

SALVATION MOUNTAIN - NILAND, CA

This man is thought to be crazy by some, and gifted by others. He is interesting to talk with.

"Going all the way to Salvation Mountain is a big gamble.

We're three hours out of San Diego, the sun dropping fast, and the three little girls in the back seat are dangling on the extreme edge of cranky. An impromptu boulder climb earlier at Jacumba's Desert View Tower bought us an hour of travel goodwill, but now time is running out.

Marisa, the middle child, suddenly whines "This seat belt is doing something to me." Then she lets out a long, piercing cry.

We screech to a halt along 111, as Marisa's dad Jay pivots over the seat and realizes she's managed some kind of full body flip, the webbed waist strap constricting snakelike. It's really tight; maybe she flipped twice. Marlayna and Meg panic in sympathy, adding to the din. Jay wants to cut the seat belt; Doug wants to abide by the terms of the rental car agreement. The extraction ultimately takes both adults pulling the strap with tug-of-war torque, and spinning Marisa like a 60 lb. whirligig. She's out, but continues a psychotic caterwauling for which even hardened parents lack a sufficient filter.

Time is up.

Suddenly, we see the bright white aberration of Salvation Mountain along a brown ridge northeast of town, the Chocolate Mountains towering in the distance. The girls become strangely quiet . . . okay, that's probably because we handed out the last of the cold sodas. Salvation Mountain gleams with radioactive color, an improbable mound lettered with the Lord's Word in latex paint.

The creator, Leonard Knight, stands by a hand-painted truck with a wooden shed built atop it. He's happy to give us the last tour of the day. The girls are fascinated by this deeply tanned, quiet-spoken folk artist... they pepper him with brazen kid questions like: "Do you live in that truck?" The answer: yes.

Leonard started his massive desert art project in 1985. He worked odd jobs before then, changing truck tires in Arizona, giving guitar lessons to kids, and "shoveling the snow off the roof of IBM buildings." For nearly twenty years, he's been at it with every shade and type of paint. He's also considered a squatter on government land.

At the peak of Salvation Mountain, a cross stands over hand-lettered Biblical quotes, terraces of sculpted flowers, and a huge heart. Leonard explains some of the details: "See those blue areas -- those are the waterfalls, and that's the Ocean Blue. There's probably been 100,000 gallons of paint I've used over the years." The surfaces Leonard paints are painstakingly sculpted in "adobe" -- mud and straw baked in the sun.

At the barest whisper by Leonard of the "steps to the top," the three girls dart off and up. We watch them clambering up the rounded features of the south face, to the giant red letters "G-O-D" -- part of "God is Love. "

As we climb in pursuit, parts of the paint are firm as concrete, and other patches are soft and gooey like hot tar. This may owe to the uncatalogued variety of paint that is donated by visitors. He achieves the best consistency and stability mixing latex and oil paints.

The site was once accused of being a toxic nightmare after hazardous waste experts took core samples and claimed it was an environmental threat. Leonard said the hubbub finally died down. "The LA Times really helped with the stories they wrote. They said the laws of God and the laws of Man are gonna collide in Niland California. Every museum in the world that reads the LA Times has lead in their famous paintings. So [the environmentalists] just backed off."

A more recent, rounded construction sits to the right of the Mountain. "I used to have a hot air balloon shaped like the mountain, and it rotted out on me. So I'm making a building like the balloon. The inside is a tree."

Someone donated 60 bales of hay that Leonard has fashioned into an "igloo," reminiscent of religious grottos we've seen in Iowa and Wisconsin.

The General Sherman tree stump, a stylized tribute to the famous stump at Sequoia National Park, is brightly painted, like everything else here. As we walk Leonard points out scraps and objects that are part of some Master Plan. "That old satellite dish will have six whirligigs attached to it," and "I need about a hundred more car windows for the museum."

"I want to make a museum here -- I want to circle the whole mountain with a museum. The hot air balloon would go over the top in bales of hay." Leonard is a little vague on the museum's contents -- in addition to his own artwork and story, it might exhibit the work of other outsider artists.

The spry 72-year old is facing the inevitable question all Dreamers ponder -- "Who will remember me after I am gone?" He's been at it for 18 years, and has much more to build at Salvation Mountain. But we sense some urgency -- that time may be running out. He does his work in the early morning, and then spends much of the rest of the day entertaining people who stop by. March was his busiest tour month ever, with hundreds of Snow Birds dropping in. Can he find the time to "finish" it -- and will it survive his eventual passing?

He asks visitors to help in a letter-writing campaign to preserve the Mountain. "A lawyer told me the only way to preserve this thing in a hundred years is to have Congress protect it nationally. I'm on squatted land where I shouldn't be, anybody with money can take it down, anything can happen. How can I possibly protect it so your great grandkids can see it 80 years from now?" He shows us a plaque from the Folk Art Society of America, proclaiming Salvation Mountain is "worthy of preservation."

"I gotta get this thing known all over the place."

As a final tip to future visitors, Leonard says he currently has more paint than he knows what to do with. We suggest providing a small cash donation instead, so, as he puts it, "he has something a little better to eat than paint."

As we drive west, praying darkness will narcotize our passengers, Marlayna proclaims from the back seat: "Mommy would never let us paint our house like that."

Salvation Mountain:
Address: East Beal Road, Niland, CA
Directions: North of I-8, south of I-10, 5 miles east of Hwy. 111 at Niland.
Admission: Free, donation suggested.
Hours: Daylight hours. (Call to verify)
Phone: None"

[buzzard]

FISHING IN CALIFORNIA

If you want to plan a fishing vacation in California, here's a couple places to get information.

One of the message boards that has information about fishing around California:

fishingnetwork.net/nocal/rivers.htm

Another site, has official information on licenses, equipment, places to go for different kinds of fish, and such, and information on "Free Fishing Days"

www.dfg.ca.gov/fish/Fishing/

[buzzard]

BASS LAKE, CA

Just a few miles up the road from where I live is Bass Lake. The lake is 5 miles long. Lots of activity there, from water skiing, jet skiing, swimming, houseboats, all kinds of boating and fishing. Camping too. The lake gets pretty packed on holiday weekends and 4th of July, but if you time your visit right, it's a fun place to be. Each spring they have a fishing tournament with a fish tagged with a $10,000 tag, LOL, he don't get caught too often. On 4th of July there's a huge fireworks display out on the lake.

www.yosemitegold.com/yosemite/basslake.html

[califgirl]

Buzzie.....don't forget Shaver and Huntington.

[buzzard]

califgirl said:

Buzzie.....don't forget Shaver and Huntington.

LOL, haven't got to them yet. And then there's Shasta up north, and Lost Lake around here, and Mamouth Pools, and, and, and, well you get the idea.

[CuPcAkE]

I would hate to be stuck in that Lawrence Welk museum! I get a headache listening to him on the tv on Sunday's when mom is watching that crap!

[buzzard]

Aw heck CC, I didn't mind watching him too much, but I'm waaaaaayyyyyyyyy older than you, LOL

[buzzard]

THE MYSTERY SPOT - SANTA CRUZ, CA

The Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz is one of those "weird places" where what you see isn't necessarily what you see, LOL. There's also a spot like it at Knott's Berry Farm.The Mystery Spot is a gravitational anomaly located in the redwood forests just outside of Santa Cruz, California. It is a circular area of effect around 150 feet or 46 meters in diameter. Within the Mystery Spot you will be stunned as your perceptions of the laws of physics and gravity are questioned. But don't take our word for it, come and decide for yourself!

The Mystery Spot was discovered in 1939 by a group of surveyors and opened to the public in 1940. The Mystery Spot has amazed and perplexed hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world, and many return time and time again to experience these puzzling variations of gravity, perspective, and height.

Some speculate that cones of metal were secretly brought here and buried in our earth as guidance systems for their spacecraft. Some think that it is in fact the spacecraft itself burried deep within the ground. Other theories include carbon dioxide permeating from the earth, a hole in the ozone layer, a magma vortex, the highest dielectric biocosmic radiation known anywhere in the world, and radiesthesia. Whatever the cause is, it remains a mystery.

[buzzard]

WEST COAST WAR DOG MEMORIAL - RIVERSIDE, CA

Not your usual place to visit, but it can give you goosebumps. Like at most of the memorials, you stand here and think about what these dogs and their handlers did with courage and selflessness. Truly awe-inspiring. When we went, my boys got tears in their eyes, and they went home and found stories to read about famous war dogs.

West Coast War Dog Memorial
Riverside, California

March Field is a legendary Air Force base that has preserved bits of its history in the impressive March Field Museum. It's a fitting backdrop for the West Coast War Dog Memorial, saluting brave American pooches and their handlers.

The black obelisk/column is just past the entryway B-24 bomber. Funded and sponsored by Nature's Recipe Pet Foods, the 16-ft. tall granite and bronze statue depicts a soldier and a German Shepherd. It was sculpted by A. Thomas Schumberg and dedicated on Feb. 21, 2000.

Other somber military monuments and memorials are arrayed around the grounds, but the War Dog Memorial commands the plaza's central vantage. The sculpted soldier is half absorbed, Han Solo-like, by the slab -- but vigilant. His dog is alert, attuned to an impending jungle ambush, or maybe just a noisy weekend pass latecomer.

A bronze plaque at the base reads:

"They Protected Us On The Field of Battle.
They Watch Over Our Eternal Rest.
We Are Grateful.
The War Dog Memorial Is a Tribute
To All Dog And handler Teams
That Served Our Country So Proudly."

Most touching are the tiles around the Memorial's base, tributes to individual dogs, each marked with a symbolic black pawprint. Inscriptions are short and a bit cryptic, but hint at the adventures and trials these dogs must have undergone: "'Hilda' My Hero Da Nang 66 B Martin" or "Team F Ban Me Thout 981st MP K9 Mort 69."Other tiles salute dogs from W.W.II and Korea.

One is a stark apology: "King Leaving you was sad and wrong Peace."What's the story here? Was King the last dog on the American embassy roof in 1975, valiantly attempting crowd control as the helicopters fled Saigon? The Memorial doesn't explain, but you get the sense the remembrance of each canine, whether for valor or simple companionship, helps veteran handlers find closure on the relationship with their departed dogs.

The East Coast National War Dog Memorial is at Fort Benning, GA -- home of the Calculator the Dog Memorial -- in front of the National Infantry Museum. Hartsdale Pet Cemetery, Hartsdale, New York has been home to another War Dog Memorial for many years. The island of Guam features the Doberman War Dog Memorial (and there is a replica at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine). Small town tributes such as "Guardians," a war dog memorial in Streamwood, Illinois, are becoming more common.

There is growing pressure for recognition on a national scale. A brochure available at the March Field ticket counter encourages visitor donations to a proposed National War Dog Memorial in Washington DC, honoring "Courage at both ends of the leash." There's a photo of the Vietnam War Memorial wall, a German Shepherd sitting and looking on patiently, with the caption: "Where's my name?"



Vietnam War Dog Memorial:
Address: 22550 Van Buren Blvd, Riverside, CA
Directions: Southeast of the city. Just east of I-215 at the Van Buren Blvd. exit. At the March Field Air Museum.