It’s been a little quiet around here lately..because I’ve
been a busy guy lately!
First, Knoxville hosted RAGBRAI (the [Des Moines] Register’s
Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa). This was the 41st year the
ride has trekked across the state, and the third time Knoxville has hosted as
an overnight town. We hosted 22,000 cyclists and between 5-8,000 support staff,
media pesonnel, and others just along for the party.
This year, I was on the planning committee and also in charge of the Beverage
Garden and Entertainment Committees. 14 bands and $40,000 in beer sales in one
night: OK!
I digress.
A few days after RAGBRAI rolled through, I had planned to
take a trip to California with a group of friends to visit our friend Megan.
Megan is pursuing her PhD at Claremont Graduate University – one of the
Claremont Colleges. From her apartment, we fanned out and saw the sights, ate
the food, and joined the parties. Pretty good fun, all in all!
I have a ton of pictures, so I’m breaking it up into three
entries..the first is the ‘Building Blog’ – a little collection of some of the
buildings I thought were cool (or easily replicated for a future project in
Knoxville ;) )
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| The buildings were pretty much all of the same vintage and most had been really nicely updated or restored. |
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| Even the buildings with a little wear on them were beautiful. I really liked all the brackets everywhere. |
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| Even their Post Office was pretty! |
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| Loved all the big windows in these old buildings. |
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| A neat little shop |
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| I thought these transom windows were the coolest things ever. I don't think I'd ever seen them open? |
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| Train Depot...whoa. |
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| The campus Megan studies on was fantastic - I took so many pictures! |
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| This is a dormatory. A freaking DORM! WITH BALCONIES! |
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| Part of the same dorm building.. |
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| ..as is this.. |
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There's also a giant rose garden in the courtyard between two of the dormitories.
Because, why not? |
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| Even their bricks were cool. Gah.. |
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| I took a lot of pergola pictures on this trip..I think that might be one of my next projects.. |
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| Mrs. Scripps died without any heirs and apparently owned a good chunk of San Diego. She left her estate to various causes around California, and a huge amount of money to - what became - the Scripps College. |
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This was a section of Claremont McKenna - one of the other colleges on the campus.
Very cool! |
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| What trip to California would be complete without doing all the touristy things? |
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| I could get used to that.. |
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| I probably could NOT get used to that! Woof.. |
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| A new sidewalk project for me? ;) |
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| Gahh..even the ice cream places were fancy.. |
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| Here we are walking...outside all the stores. ;) |
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| I suppose you can do fun things with your sidewalks when you don't have to shovel them.. |
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Of course, the great thing about an observatory is the view from the top of the hill!
Downtown L.A. |
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| The Hollywood Sign! |
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| From the Mulholland Drive Overlook |
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| Hollywood Sign from the other side |
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| Spent a good part of one day strolling up and down Venice Beach - I liked this house :) |
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| The (HUGE) beach! |
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Really nice biking/walking/skating paths up and down the length of the beach.
Mountains and palm trees on the beach..almost makes running not sound so bad.. |
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Venice Beach is famously..weird. There were plenty of odd folks and LOTS of "medical" marijuana in the air. But, it's all part of the experience :)
I thought these houses were pretty cool - great detail in the paint jobs! |
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| There were also lots of really nice beachfront properties, so it's an interesting mix |
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Huntington Beach was our actual 'beach' day, and it was perfect!
After toasting on the beach for a while, we decided to brave the chilly water and go for a swim. Which basically turned into the group of Midwesterners battling the waves...and losing :) |
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