Photo Essay: Top Posts of 2014

In looking at what people were reading on my blog, it's nice to see that posts dating back to 2011 and 2012 are somehow still being found and clicked on. With both my photo essays and my word essays, I try to capture a place in time, but convey a certain timelessness and universality to the thoughts and themes.

The two most popular posts on this site for the year 2014 were actually from 2013, but as relevant as ever:


Photo Essay: Rancho Los Amigos, Abandoned County Poor Farm, Downey (Exterior)


Photo Essay: George Air Force Base, Abandoned & Consumed

Among those essays that were posted this year, here are the most read ones, in descending order of popularity:


Photo Essay: The Rock Art of Dunsmore Park, Former Home of Mt. Lukens Sanitarium


Photo Essay: Lanterman Developmental Center, Pomona, Haunted & Closing


Photo Essay: Verdugo Hills Cemetery - Deteriorated, Vandalized, and Washed Away


Photo Essay: 100 Years of Trona


Photo Essay: Boeing Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Lab, Declassified & Decontaminating


Photo Essay: Lincoln Heights Jail, Closed to Public


Photo Essay: (Mostly) Abandoned Hawthorne Plaza Mall & Parking, Exterior


Photo Essay: The Path of Destruction of the St. Francis Dam Flood, 86 Years Later

I'm sensing a trend here. Although I post a lot about hiking, architecture, trains, planes, Halloween and Christmas – as well about my childhood and existential crisis – it seems that the rest of the world shares my fascination with the beautiful decay, the pornography of ruin, the delicious abandonment of urban exploration (and exploration of places not so urban). These vacant, often haunted places may scare off the mildly curious who don't dare explore them, but their stories and their varying stages of decrepitude attract a certain cult following, and photos of them create a certain vicarious thrill.

I'm grateful for the few people I've found to join me on adventures in real life, and for all the people out there who join me vicariously. I share my life with you all, through my lens. It's not always pretty. It's often speckled and dirty. But it's ours. It's nice to know that someone wants to be a part of these experiences.

Related Posts:
Obsessive Collector of Experiences
Photo Essay: Top Posts of 2013
Photo Essay: Top Posts of 2012

Obsessive Collector of Experiences

Now that the year is coming to an end, I suppose people are compelled to ask, "So what do I have now?"

What did I get this year?

But I don't care much about things. If I could, I'd stay in my apartment until I had someone to share a place with. I didn't even choose the color of my car.

I grew up in a house that felt more like a gallery, or a department store, thanks to my mother's collecting habits. At one point, the kitchen was so full of mushroom decor – from cookie jars to curtains to potholders – it would seem a showcase for the designer's line of wares. The dining room became so overrun with porcelain dolls, we could no longer use it for Thanksgiving dinner, so we went out. The living room clanged with three different Westminster chimes ringing every quarter-hour, slightly offset from each other from one running just a little too fast and another running just a little too slow. Upstairs, curio cabinets full of music boxes were just waiting to be wound up and left to play their tinny tunes.

Every room had its own theme, with its own collection of curios, which sometimes fell out of favor and were cleared out in one fell swoop, sold at a garage sale or given away to my uncle or, later, the Salvation Army. As much as our mother was a compulsive shopper and exhibited tinges of hoarding, she got even more pleasure out of throwing things away. And not just her own things, but anything in the house, regardless of who it belonged to. You couldn't become too attached to anything in our house.

So I learned not to want things, and not to love things. I couldn't bear it when they were taken away from me.

The only things I really ever bought were records, because they made me feel something. Through music, I could experience the outside world while I was locked inside that house, in its freezing basement or its sweltering attic. And even though my mother managed to wrestle some of those records away from me, she couldn't take away the lyrics etched in my brain, the melodies recorded onto my heart.

So as early as I can remember, I've spent most of whatever money I earned – from chores, or tutoring, or babysitting, or being a teen reporter – on food and experiences. I'd rather go to Arby's or Burger King and pig out rather than buy something that could break or be withheld as a punishment. My parents couldn't take taste away. And in that realization, I became a total child hedonist, a pleasure-seeker of the most atemporal, immaterial and intangible realm. I wanted to do things, see things, learn things. While my mother spent money on stuff, populating each room of the house with a TV and VCR (though God only knows why), I became a hoarder of memories.

Overprotected as I was, I didn't have a lot of freedom to explore or adventure as I do now, so I turned to my high school drama productions, in which I could sing and dance in vastly different other worlds and periods, from medieval to Dickensian times, turn of the century American south and Prohibition-era Chicago.

As I broke away from my family and began to experience the freedom I'd sought for so long – which unfortunately was accompanied by the feeling of being orphaned and abandoned – I began to see my mother in myself more and more. I was becoming the party girl I knew her to be, thirty years before. And I was obsessively collecting, with the same fervor and voracity as I'd witnessed in my mother, which was terrifying to behold in her, and now in myself. But I was collecting something very different: I was collecting stories.

The stories were full of lovers and late nights and embarrassments and rock stars, some memories muted under the haze of blackberry brandy or kamikaze shots. Some stories were good, and many of them were bad, but they were all exciting, and far beyond anything I'd ever experienced back home. And one exciting encounter begat another and another, always trying to top the last one, outdo myself over and over again.

I've done many of the big things now – skydiving, ziplining, paragliding, stock car racing – but I've yet to enjoy some of the more innocent transgressions that many of my peers got out of their systems when they were teenagers. I've never gone skinny-dipping. And because I haven't, it's on the list.

I've never ridden a horse.

I've never loved someone who's loved me back.

But this year, I learned how to pick a lock. I learned how to mount bugs. I learned how to lease apartments. I met Dennis Quaid. I smelled the Corpse Flower and traipsed under the monstrous wistaria.

I didn't travel much, but I saw a lot of stuff. I saw myself on the big screen, twice. I saw Saturn.

I survived a car accident. I battled my brain which turned against me and gave me night terrors, calmed only by medication that has made me yawn uncontrollably. I looked down the barrel of 40.

I found partners in crime.

I left one lover, watched another one get married, and rebounded with another in a gloriously catastrophic way.

I haven't done everything I want, and I don't have everything I want, but nobody can say I haven't tried. I've lived life more than most people. I've crammed everything I can into this year, all these years of my adult life.

But for those of us who are collectors, it's always about the next one.

So onwards and upwards to 2015. I can't wait for this year to be over. I can't wait to see what experiences the next one brings.

Related Posts:
This Addictive Life
At the End of the Year

Photo Essay: Mission San Fernando Rey de España (Updated)

It's curious that I'd gone to San Diego and Santa Barbara counties to explore their missions, yet I hadn't been to the only mission within Los Angeles city limits. It was time to remedy that.



The 17th mission (of 21 total) along El Camino Real, Mission San Fernando Rey de España was established September 8, 1797 by Fray Fermin Francisco De Lasuen, the second Presidente of the missions after Junipero Serra.

Photo Essay: The Horses of the Rose Parade

I've been fascinated with the Rose Parade for a while now, but unwilling to get up early enough on New Year's Day to make it out to Pasadena in time for it, or, worse yet, camp out for a good spot, as some people do.

But there are other ways to participate in the fun, without having a sober New Year's Eve. Last year I volunteered to help decorate Glendale's float and got to see a lot of the other floats in progress.

This year, three days before the Rose Parade, I spent the day with the horses that will be trotting down Colorado Boulevard while I'm still in bed on January 1.

Equestfest is, quite simply, a gathering of horse people at the LA Equestrian Center. It's a festival and a show, where you get to see the Budweiser Clydesdales in action...



...learn some history...



...root for your favorite opponent in a medieval jousting competition...



...and marvel at rope tricks and choreographed horse dances.



But the real action is outside.



Before, during, and after the show...



...you have many chances of getting up close and personal with the riders...



...and, more importantly, their equine companions.



Whether it's those of the Norco Cowgirls Rodeo Drill Team...



...or the New Buffalo Soldiers...



...they all seemed to be calm and relaxed...



...well-treated and even-tempered...



...even with a member of the Prime Time Express dressed as Tina Turner mounted atop.



It's amazing that these horses can perform such tricks and dance moves...



...and receive all this attention...



...letting dozens of children grab at their noses.



Buttercup even showed us her hoof when asked to.



The intimate time with individual horses is special, but during and after the show...



...you get a unique behind-the-scenes look...



...as the equestrian units (like the Long Beach Mounted Police) line up in the staging area to get ready to enter...



...and squeeze in some quick rehearsal time.



It's better than the VIP seats inside the Equidome.



And afterwards, the festival organizers open the barricades by the stables, and allow attendees to come meet the horses...



...who, having worked hard inside, show a bit of sweat coming though their thick winter coats.

Not all Equestfest participants actually appear in the Rose Parade (sorry, Long Beach), and not all Rose Parade participants appear at Equestfest, but it's a great opportunity to really see what these horses can do, and admire the skill and sport (and costumes!) of their riders. And eat a giant bag of Kettlecorn and pet as many noses as you can.

Because there's only so much time left in 2014. And Thursday is a new year.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: Rose Parade 2014 Floats, In Progress
Photo Essay: Rose Bowl Stadium, Renovated Again, and Open for Tours!
Photo: Feeding the Wild Horses
Photo Essay: Welcoming 100 Mules to LA After Walking the Aqueduct
Photo Essay: The Gentle Barn, Healing Hearts in A Forever Home

Photo Essay: The Ruins of White Point

[Last updated 6/29/23 11:27 AM PT—Archival photo replaced at bottom and video embed added.]

When I went to the White Point / Royal Palms County Beach, I was looking for the ruins of the Royal Palms Country Club. It didn't occur to me that there might also be something of interest remaining at White Point.



But because when I arrived, I didn't really know what I was looking for, or exactly where I was...

Photo Essay: The Gentle Barn, Healing Hearts in A Forever Home

Those of us who have survived abuse or some kind of trauma don't always socialize well. Not naturally, anyway.

But as much as we recoil from an outstretched hand, we need human contact. We need love and affection. We're just scared of it.



The Gentle Barn in Santa Clarita rescues such abused, neglected, and abandoned animals, for whom they are a last resort.



It provides them with a forever home...



...where, like Daisy, they can heal their bodies (she had a broken back)...



...and then their hearts.



But the magic of this place is, while the animals are healing, they are helping humans (depressives like me, inner city kids, etc.) heal too.



The first thing you do when you arrive is hug a cow.



Most of them will let you hug and brush them, and some will give you kisses.



Lucy was kept as a pet but eventually sent to slaughter. She's a cuddler.



Many of these cows were once kept for milking, which means they were constantly bred to continue the production of milk, their babies ripped away from them, never to be seen again.



There are over 160 animals living out the rest of their lives (much more happily) at The Gentle Barn, from cows to cats to chickens to donkeys.



Addison is a 17 year old male donkey recovering marvelously from severe abuse...



...including being forced to carry loads too heavy for him.



Andrew is a 27 year old male Arabian, once kept as a stud, and abandoned when he was too old to breed.



These days, he's gentle enough to eat a carrot right out of the palm of your hand.



Despite their traumas...



...they don't seem to hold a grudge against their human visitors.



Caesar worked as a movie horse, but buckled under strict training, and spent three years rehabilitating at The Gentle Barn.



Many of the animals, like Caesar, are now considered fully healed.



Each of the animals have their own personalities...



...which they're learning are safe to express...



...because their lives of suffering and punishment are now over.



They have been rescued, for good.



As a visitor, there's something very healing about being able to get so close to these animals in a way you're rarely able to at, say, a petting zoo. I had never pet a chicken before. It was so soft.



Presiding over the upper barn is Jewel, the formerly homeless peacock found wandering around the neighborhood. When The Gentle Barn opened its doors to him, he walked in and never left.

Sir Francis the turkey is nicknamed Sir Fancy Pants, a fabulous show-off who struts his stuff around.



Many of the goats there were rescued from backyard butchers, where they were starving and would have been illegally butchered.



Now they bask in the sun...



...and almost seem to smile.



There are also llamas and dogs and sheep...



...like Stanley, who was abused as an educational tool for schoolchildren (!) but has learned that not all humans are cruel.



The pigs seem to be the main attraction in the upper barn...



...some of whom were rescued from a pumpkin patch....



...others from the home of a hoarder, and from people who had no idea how to raise pigs as pets...



...and, in Biscuit's case, from slaughter.



He'd been so overfed that he now weighs in at 1000 pounds. And he just loves his belly being rubbed.

Most of the animals at The Gentle Barn have made tremendous progress and are, by the sanctuary's name, gentle, but a few still have a way to go. They get skittish around strangers. They don't like their heads to be touched. They might get nervous and kick you. It's not their fault. We humans – the worst of us – did this to them. But we humans – the well-intentioned of us – can do something to make up for it.

Carefully, gently, and with love.

Related Posts:
Photo: Feeding the Wild Horses
Photo Essay: Welcoming 100 Mules to LA After Walking the Aqueduct
Photo Essay: Lions, Tigers, and Bears - Oh My!
A Safe Place, Far from Home
In Captivity