Thursday, January 10, 2008
We had an uneventful drive to Malibu, but oh, the San Bernardino area is ugly. As we hit Highway 10, we were enveloped in an unholy fog/smog cloud that obscured our vision, which maybe was a good thing. It eventually cleared up, but we drove through areas of scrubby, barren land, then through ugly industrial areas and suburban regions that looked totally boring. The San Bernardino Mountains float hazily in the distance, but they look like they belong to another world. Gigantic trucks surrounded us, like killer sharks around a hapless tuna. We eventually passed through old town L.A. and hit the beach at Santa Monica. Driving north to Malibu was a relief. Our RV park (the only one in Malibu) is nice, high on the hills overlooking Dan Blocker State Beach and pale blue Pacific. The sunset was spectacular and it is much warmer here than the desert.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Coming home on Highway 101 was a pleasure . It’s two lanes or more and runs through so much pretty ranch land and vineyards. There are even a few orchards – the old-fashioned kind that are a reasonable size, not like the mega-fruit tree businesses on Interstate 5. Then we reached San Jose; San Jose to San Francisco is the ugliest stretch of 101 I’ve seen. An additional bonus, however, was that we got to deliver the Lazy Daze back to its storage spot in Foster City without lugging it home. We ferried more than half our stuff home on Sunday and retrieved the remainder on Monday.

So another trip has ended and we missed another major weather event. Our back yard suffered from the big windstorm: another sizable limb of our loquat tree fell (it now has no large limbs on it’s southwest side) and we have a lot of debris to clean up, but we’re glad to be home.

When we woke up today, Dave looked out the window and asked me what was wrong with picture. The picture was that the sun was rising in the east above the Pacific Ocean. Apparently, Malibu is set at such a southeast to northwest angle of the coast, the sun appears both to rise and set over the ocean.Very strange. Dave went off to his photographic portfolio review, where over the next two days seven people prominent in various aspects of photography examine his portfolio and offer opinions and advice on what he could do to improve and market his work. I lounged around, did some laundry, lounged around, took a short walk, lounged around; it’s a pattern I’ve developed that works well for me.

Saturday, January 12, 2008
Yesterday was the conclusion to Dave’s portfolio review. It was an interesting but tiring day for both of us. Over 2 days, Dave met with 7 people who are involved with photography in terms of publishing books or magazines, operating galleries, collecting or marketing the work. Each participant brings in a body of work and discusses it with the reviewer. Different reviewers bring different perspectives and opinions, and can offer advice on avenues of action and establish useful contacts. Dave found some of the reviewers very helpful; others, not so much. With only 20 minutes per review, I imagine it is something like speed dating.

After the reviews were over, most participants went across the street to see Photo LA, a very large photographic art exposition at the Santa Monica airport. Galleries and publishers from all over the country set up booths to display their photography. A lot of it is older work by Ansel Adams, Edward and Brett Weston, Dorothea Lange, but most of it is by current photographers and more interesting than I expected. One photographer, Richard Stultz, recorded orderly lines of groceries, medicines, perfumes, ties and shirts. Besides being colorful and arresting, the images were a strong statement about the number of choices we have when shopping and the consumer culture in which we live.

We had a quick early dinner, then Dave went back to his location along with 60 or so other participants to set up a display of his work for people to look at. I think a lot of the work was as good as that which was shown at Photo LA. In fact, some of the participants in the review had work displayed at Photo LA. It ended at 8 p.m. and we were very happy to get back to our Lazy Daze and poop out.

We get to see a beautiful sunrise each morning. The orange sun rises over the pale ice-blue sea, looking like a Monet painting. We eventually got going and drove through the fire-ravaged Malibu Canyon, and went to my favorite museum in the world, the Getty Museum. The buildings remind me of an erector set, simple, yet full of complex detail. The plazas look the way architectural designs always draw them: filled with people enjoying coffee, sun, fountains and each other. Most plazas don’t reach the ideal; these do. We walked through a few galleries, but art isn’t really the point to me; the space and gardens are. We took an architectural tour and learned a little about how Richard Meier designed the museum. In the meantime, the sun was getting lower and the light was getting better. The sunset was stunning and then the next spectacular occurrence: watching the lights come up over a gigantic expanse of L.A. We finished off a wonderful day by eating a great dinner at Tra di Noi, an Italian restaurant in Malibu. Dave had crab cakes and potato and leek ravioli. I had a spinach salad with Gorgonzola and figs and eggplant parmesan. It’s the best Italian food we’ve had in a long time.

Sunday, January 13, 2008
After heavy winds last night, our misconception about where the sun rises cleared up. With a crystal clear morning, we could see the long skinny arm of Palos Verde for the first time on the southwest end of Los Angeles. So the sun doesn’t rise over the Pacific. We started the home run today, heading north on Highways 1 and 101. The traffic was light and the sky and ocean were a sparkling blue; we have had absolutely perfect weather on this trip.

We’re staying at Oceano, right by the dunes. We took a walk through them this afternoon, and ended up at the edge of Oceano Beach, blocked from it by a fence, to protect us and the dunes from all the SUVs and off-road vehicles zooming up and down the beach. Oceano may have the only beach in California where vehicles are free to roam. The exhaust and noise was unpleasant, but it didn’t seem to bother the birds.