I’m a couple days late for Flag Day, but I’ll share this photo that Verna took in Wickenburg during our May visit to the Wickenburg, AZ, Chamber of Commerce. The “Out Wickenburg Way” motto seen on the town flag is also the name of a website about the town and what’s happening there. Click on the image to enlarge.
Several months back (a year maybe?) my digital keyboard gave up the ghost. I have been thinking about a replacement, so I went on-line and ordered this one. It’s a Yamaha 61-key synthesizer. It got very good reviews and was priced around $270 USD including shipping and accessories.
I started playing when I was five years old and I have almost always had a piano or organ, so I sort of missed having one. I’m looking forward to playing this nice new shiny rig.
Click on the image above for a larger view.
Tonight we’re watching a football bowl game – the “San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl.” I guess that bowl game sponsorship is important these days, but could we just have them call it the “Poinsettia Bowl” and mention all the sponsorship stuff in a subtitle? It probably won’t happen, but it would be nice.
Meanwhile, take a look at this nice poinsettia growing on the front porch. Image credit, Verna. Click to enlarge.
We drove to Santa Monica for a dental appointment this morning. When we got there, we saw an ice rink a half-block away from the dentist office. Since we were there early, we went over to have a closer look.
The Ice at Santa Monica is part of a “celebrate the holidays” initiative sponsored by Bayside District. We saw mostly kids on the ice, including a few very small children in the “Tot Spot,” a scaled down supervised area for the little ones.
It was certainly strange to see outdoor ice skating on the streets of Santa Monica on a 68° fall day. Click on the image to enlarge.
We recently visited the historic site of the Manzanar Interment Camp. We were heading home from Reno through the Owens Valley in the shadow of the Sierra Nevada and stopped to view the history and exhibits in the museum there. We took a self-guided tour of the grounds and stopped to pay our respects at the Memorial for those who died there.
Image: The Manzanar Memorial – click to enlarge.
From WikiPedia:
Manzanar is most widely known as the site of one of ten camps where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. Located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in California’s Owens Valley between the towns of Lone Pine to the south and Independence to the north, it is approximately 230 miles (370 km) northeast of Los Angeles. Manzanar (which means “apple orchard” in Spanish) was identified by the United States National Park Service as the best-preserved of the former camp sites, and was designated the Manzanar National Historic Site.
The South Coast Botanic Garden is the setting for the Model Train Show this weekend, November 7-8, 2009. It’s always fun to see the variety of miniature railroad exhibits. The best modular layouts in Southern California are represented in several venues around the garden.
Verna got this shot of a red car model in a great miniature circa WWII setting. Click on the image to enlarge.
