California Plus Two - Southern California Scenes & Two Stops on Our Return - August 2018
Patricia and I spent the better part of August in Southern California and driving there and back. Here are a few notable photos taken in Santa Monica, Santa Barbara. Ojai and the Getty Villa near Malibu. We took a southern route on the return drive, which permitted a visit to Petrified Forest National Park and the Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas (regardless your feelings about Walmart, the Crystal Bridges Museum is highly recommended).
Some photos of children at a Santa Monica water park.
Gallery attendant/guard at the Santa Monica Art Museum, which has some nice pieces, notably a trio of Monets.
An HDR image.
The "Mural Room" in the Santa Barbara City Hall.
The City Hall has a wealth of wonderful Spanish tiles.
Fountain at the Four Seasons Resort, where we stayed. Expensive, but luxurious.
An exterior hallway at the Four Seasons. (An HDR image.)
The grounds seen from our restaurant at the Ojai Valley Inn. (An HDR image.)
An HDR image.
The evening was warm, yet they had these natural gas fires roaring away. Sort of typifies the Southern California lifestyle.
Ojai Valley Inn 4
Ojai Valley Inn -- Just before departure.
The interior courtyard of the Getty Villa's re-creation of the Villa dei Papiri, buried in Herculaneum from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. (An HDR image.)
An HDR image.
An HDR image.
The outer courtyard. (An HDR image.)
I photographed a number of the Getty's antiquities.
An exquisite piece, no more than five inches high
One of several frescoes. I've enhanced it a bit, hoping that this is how it might have appeared for the original owners.
Fresco of Bacchus and Ariadne. Again, somewhat enhanced.
A portrait on a mummy, dating from Roman occupation of Egypt. Done with encaustic.
Three exquisite bronze miniatures.
Statuette of Draped Female Figure, noted as being "Luna" (Selene, goddess of the moon), but possibly Nyx, goddess of the night. (Bronze, ca. 100 BCE-100 CE, about 10 inches high. An HDR image.
Petrified Forest National Park -- America's great western expanses have many areas best described as "blasted heaths." This, lands stretching as much as 100 miles distant, taken from Lacey Point looking approximately northwest.
Petrified Forest National Park -- Taken from Whipple Point, looking approximately north.
Crystal Bridges Art Museum -- Crystal Bridges Art Museum houses the Walton collection. (You know, the Waltons of Walmart.) When we visited they had a special exhibit of Georgia O'Keefe, of which this is one specimen.
I photographed several pieces in the museum, but I'm showing only this one, because I found it so strikingly realistic. I had a major double-take when I first saw "him."