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Leisure

Photo Op: Some Eaton Canyon Ramblings

Angeleno Sights

A black-and-white view of Eaton Canyon — chaparral, poison oak and all. Situated in the San Gabriel Mountains near Altadena, the area was originally named El Precipicio for its steep gorges, the result of its location along what was once a main sector of the San Andreas Fault.
The bridge at the lower left is part [...]

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Toxic Flora: Dayhiking Amid the Poison Oak

Life in Angel City

The upside to the February and March rains we get here in the Southland is that our dry chaparral suddenly springs to life, making hillside hikes all the more enjoyable once the sun comes out. The downside is that same breathtaking chaparral along the trail includes lots of poison oak.
Western poison oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum) [...]

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The Lights Are On in Hastings Ranch!

Life in Angel City

Well, sort of… With the rain pouring and the troubled economy encouraging drastic energy conservation, the annual Upper Hastings Ranch Light Up seems more of a hit-or-miss event this year.
Driving through the soggy Pasadena enclave during a 10 p.m. deluge, I saw plenty of houses wired up with lights and displays, but few were actually [...]

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Moon to Glow Yuletide Red This Monday Night

Odds and Ends

While it won’t compare much with the Star of Bethlehem some 2000 years ago, the heavens are nonetheless aligning to deliver us Left Coasters our own special astronomical phenomenon just in time for Christmas.
According to a NASA alert, a holiday lunar eclipse will begin Monday, Dec. 20 at 10:33 p.m. PST, taking a “dark-red bite” [...]

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L.A. Auto Show a Trip Down Memory Lane

Life in Angel City

Unless you’re totally pedestrian, you probably know the L.A. Auto Show has made its yearly return to the Los Angeles Convention Center, running Nov. 19-28. I’m headed that way tomorrow, filled with anticipation. It’s always hard to say which I enjoy most — seeing the exciting new automotive technologies and concept cars or bumping into [...]

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Corpse Flower Creates Big Stink at Huntington

Cryptic L.A.

This past weekend, crowds lined up at the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, wanting to catch a glimpse of a flower known both for its humongous size (6 to 10 feet tall!) and its stench. The plant producing this startling, malodorous bloom is known by botanists as Amorphophallus titanum and by laypeople as the [...]

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Tripout to Charles Lummis’ El Alisal Hideaway

Angeleno Sights

Imagine trekking more than 3,000 miles to take a job. Yet that’s exactly what Charles Fletcher Lummis did in 1884 after accepting a reporting position at the Los Angeles Times.
In what has to be one of the greatest early promotional stunts in L.A. Media history, Lummis journeyed on foot from Cincinnati to the City of [...]

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Detail Shot: Frogtown Garden Gate

Life in Angel City

A colorful gate to a community garden catches the morning sun in the Elysian Valley’s Frogtown neighborhood. Just a block or two from the river, this is one of the nicest community gardens I’ve ever stumbled across. Everything is very neatly arranged and tidy, with a well-maintained brick path leading past a variety of fruit [...]

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Weekend Matinee: Remember Marineland?

Angeleno Sights

The aquatic park entertained millions of visitors to the Palos Verdes Peninsula from 1954 to 1987. Opening a year prior to Disneyland, it was then the world’s largest oceanarium and arguably California’s first major theme park.
But the whales, dolphins and performing seals are all history now, along with the ruins shown in this video [...]

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A Halloween Post Mortem

Life in Angel City

Halloween used to be my favorite holiday. I guess it still is, but I just don’t seem to enjoy it as much nowadays.
The past several years a busy work schedule usually kept me on the road for the holiday. No costume parties, no Day of the Dead processions at Olvera Street, no ghosts, ghouls or [...]

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