Hooray for Cahuenga! Somehow, it doesn’t have the same ring, does it? The area now called Hollywood was once known as Nopalera (or Prickly-Pear Field in Spanish) and later as Cahuenga Valley. Then, in 1896, developer HJ Whitley supposedly asked a local Chinese merchant what he was doing with his wagon-load of timber. The response came…
So, who knew you’d find the Artic in the Southern California sunshine? Well, to be fair, it’s ARTIC, not Arctic – but there are some chilly breezes surrounding this story. The ARTIC in question is the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center. For everyone else, it would be the Anaheim train station and bus interchange –…
You know, for many years I wondered why so many US cities had a “Union Station” I mean, I’d heard of Union Station in Washington, and Union Station in Chicago – but on a recent trip to the US, we actually caught trains to (or from) Union Stations in Denver, Colorado, and of course in…
I don’t remember exactly what comic book it was in – or what age I was – or how much the price was – but it left me with an unquenchable desire. Good story so far, huh? 🙂 The details, as best I remember them, were this: it was a comic book ad – you know,…
Imagine, if you can, what it must have been like to stand in the gun battery on a floating weapon of war – where the barrels of your guns are 16 inches, or nearly half a metre in diameter. Imagine that the shells that scream away from its innards can travel up to 23 miles, or…
Candied Corn doesn’t have a great deal of nutritional value … but don’t try telling that to your kids – or your furry friends! Oh, I don’t mean the horrible pure-sugar vaguely corn-shaped candies that are a staple for many American kids at Halloween. I mean real corn, sweetened with honey or caramel or powdered…
Maybe it’s just me, but I seem to see microcosms of our world whenever I put the camera’s viewfinder to my eye. Here’s a perfect example. We were walking along Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles recently, when this building caught my eye. Not the bright, garish Wax Museum – but the abandoned Art Deco structure…
I wasn’t sure that I was actually seeing this .. I mean, Shoe Shine boys? In 2016? In LA, which has more sneakers-per-mile than almost any place on earth? But yep, here they were. Two grown men, shining shoes at $7 a pop, in the heart of Los Angeles. It felt like a throwback to a bygone…
I’ve wanted to see the La Brea tar pits on Wiltshire Boulevard in the heart of Los Angeles, since I was a schoolboy. I can’t remember where I first read about them, but I was fascinated by the concept – asphalt that oozes from the ground trapping mastodons, and saber-tooth tigers, and dire-wolves and thousands…
This week, our Travel pics series is J for Jets. For Thursday, there’s not much of the jet on display – but it was such an amazing view, I couldn’t resist! This is the Alps, from on board an Alitalia Airbus A320 We were flying from Heathrow to Rome, to spend a few days in the Eternal City…
