My recent Spring Festival adventures began with a long layover in Los Angeles. My great uncle lives there and was kind enough to share the day with me as chauffeur and host. I have been trying to get to L.A. … Continued
Frank Lloyd Wright’s V.C. Morris Gift Shop On my quest to visit Frank Lloyd Wright buildings around the world, my layover in San Francisco allowed me to find the fabulous V.C. Morris Gift Shop on Maiden Lane. This unassuming masterpiece … Continued
Before my summer Bay Area experience I didn’t know about San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park. Instead, when national parks in that part of California were mentioned I thought of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, Golden Gate National Recreation … Continued
My journey back to Beijing in August included another long layover. This time I had several hours, during the day, for a San Francisco layover. I’ve been to this amazing city before, but I was still very excited to go … Continued
On my quest to visit and photograph all of the world’s LDS temples, while helping my sister drive home to California from Texas recently we made a pit stop at the Los Angeles California Temple. I had visited this temple … Continued
The highlight of Cannery Row for me is the world-class Monterey Bay Aquarium, which highlights the vibrant life of the bay it is built by. I did have the chance to visit this magnificent marine museum the first time I … Continued
“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered … Continued
In 1891, Stanford University opened its doors. The university, sometimes ranked along side the Ivy League, was created as a tribute to Leland and Jane Stanford’s only son who died of typhoid as a teenager. After visiting the Hanna House, which … Continued
A professor and an architect with much in common paved the path for one of the architect’s most comprehensive and unique residential commissions. The professor was Paul Hanna at Stanford; the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Though the Hanna House or … Continued
When we talk about ancient things, generally they aren’t living. However, in California you can find trees that have lived longer than the oldest buildings in North America built by the Ancestral Puebloans of the Southwest. Visiting a grove of … Continued