Lyons Air Museum & Jaguars

We had been meaning to go to the Lyons air museum at SNA, but never got around to it.  However, today the SoCal Jaguar owners club was meeting at the museum to display their cars.  We headed to the airport with Mark & Theresa.  It was a nice morning out and we saw some cool planes & cars!

Big Bear, Xmas 2011

Angela had been bugging me about going to the mountains to see the snow. Since I had a week off work over Xmas, we headed up to Big Bear for the day.  Below are a few pics:

Christmas Eve 2011 at Casa Saldana

As is tradition, we headed over to Angela's parents house for Christmas Eve.  Below are a few pictures of the night and also some marzipan fruit we made:

Old Town San Diego, Dec' 2011

We headed down to San Diego for "December Nights" the Christmas festival/fair at Balboa Park. Balboa Park once hosted the worlds fair, and now is a big park with lots of museums. All the museums were free and we saw everything from a WWII spitfire to classic cars and modern art! We had some excellent Indian food from the Indian cottage (each country has its own little cottage, including England). We stayed in the old town and had some great food and drinks!  There have been a lot of changes to the old town since I first visited, it much more developed and much more popular.  Below are a few pictures of the old town and the newly restored victorian square:

Mullin Automotive Museum

Last weekend we went to the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard.  It's a private museum only open twice a month with reservations in advance.  I've been wanting to check it out for a while now but finding a day when its open that fits into our schedule hasn't been easy.
 

The museum collection contains French Art Deco cars and furniture.  The furniture was alright, interesting but not some of the classic American or English styles we like.  The cars on the other hand were pretty amazing. 

These are all French cars made in the late 1920s and 30s before WWII and back when French cars were highly desirable (who'd a guessed).  They are all made in the carriage tradition, were a customer would come in and buy the chassis and then work with a carriage builder to design the car and pick out the colors and interior.

We were lucky enough to take the first tour, which was led by the head museum curator, Andrew Reilly.  He was excellent and walked through everything from the point of view of the museum, why this collection and what he wanted to portray by setting things up the way he did.  The tour lasted 2 1/2 hrs and flew by.  The only reason we noticed it was getting late was because our stomachs started to get hungry.

We got to see a lot of the interiors and he did cover a lot of the different cars, the new technology being used and why they did certain things the way they did.  These cars were all for the 1% of society who could actually afford them and you can see the craftsmanship in each and every one.

This one however was quite unique.  This is a 1938 Bugatti Atlantic, 1 of 3 produced and is the most expensive car in the world.  It's on loan to the museum and was purchased at a closed auction for somewhere between 30 and 40 million dollars, yes that is million.

It was amazing!

The race cars were awesome too.  Down stairs were all the cars and on the second floor were all the race cars.

The collection was far beyond anything we had imagined and having a tour with the curator just made it all the more interesting.  One of the cars had just won at Pebble Beach and many of the other cars had won in past years.  It definitely gave us a new appreciation for Art Deco cars and the French tradition of building of them.

Chicago

A couple of weeks ago we flew out to Chicago for a long weekend.  We've always gone threw Chicago to fly into Manchester and always felt someday we should go and get out of the airport.  So with Jamie's award we booked it and got to explore the city.

The first day there we got up bright and early and walked over to the Field Museum.  We actually made good time and had to wait a little while for the museum to open.  So we took the time to figure out how to delay the camera shot so we could get a picture of the two of us.

The Field Museum had so many interesting sections and artifacts but the thing that stayed with us was the Pacific Northwest section.  We love the art and graphics and some of the totem poles were really amazing.

That afternoon it was off to a river cruise to see some of the city.  I was a little cold over there, it was the coldest it had been all summer, lucky us.  At least we did not get hot walking around the city.

So many skyscrapers, we loved all the architecture and history of the buildings.  We did two architecture walking tours that really explained the birth and history of the buildings and the city.  It was crazy to think how old some of the building were and how early they started building so high.

We did so much walking and eating on this trip.  We even had drinks on the 96th floor of the Hancock Building.  What an amazing view and coming from an earthquake area a little creepy to be so high up.

The green building to the left with the gold leaf at the top was one of our favorite buildings.  Its now the Hard Rock Hotel but was originally the Carbon and Carbide Building.  A gorgeous Art Deco Building, one like it was built in Los Angeles but was unfortunately torn down.  There are still two others in L.A. with the green coloring but from what we have heard none like the one that was demolished.

Another view of the skyline :)

On the architectural walking tour we got to go inside the buildings and see some of the original pieces.  Architecture back then was all about the details and tying everything together.  They don't make mail boxes like this anymore!

This is one of the stylized owls in the Trade building.  Its rare you see an owl instead of an eagle, I think its gorgeous.

Another amazing piece inside one of the buildings.  Can you tell we enjoyed all the Art Deco pieces?  We also fell in love with a bunch of vintage 20s and 30s posters.  We brought home 4 of them.  We had a great time and didn't get to see everything in just under 4 days.  So another trip out there is a definite must.

Tall Ship Festival

Labor Day weekend we decided to go down to San Diego and check out the Tall Ship Festival at the Maritime Museum.  We had never been before but figured it would be a great weekend to drive down and enjoy the museum.

We were surprised at how many ships were there and how many  you could board and take a look around.  They even had the ship used on Master and Commander with Russel Crowe.  The Star of India is always the main attraction and probably my favorite one but it was great to see so many different types of ships.

The weather was great, sunny with a slight breeze and I finally got to wear my hat I bought for our trip to Monterrey.

Here's a picture of the Star of India with full sails docked in the harbor.  They do take her out to see on special trips but mainly have exhibits on board.

We did get someone to take a picture of us together, a rare occurrence.