Photo Essay: The Huntington's Japanese Garden and Its 320-Year-Old Transplant

After all of the times I'd been to The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, there was one major area I'd never seen: the Japanese Garden, added by Henry Huntington to his then-private estate in 1912.

That is, until I finally got to visit in November 2023. (Sorry it's taken me so long to share my experience!)

 

 

Photo Essay: In Search of a Desert Modernist's Legacy at Batman's Former Palm Springs Home

The Old Las Palmas neighborhood began in the 1920s as a simple subdivision of Palm Springs, California, but it became one of the premiere residential neighborhoods of the desert getaway city. 

It's been home for the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Kirk Douglas, Dinah Shore, Donna Reed, Liberace, and many more stars—and word has it, it's got the most celebrity homes of all the Palm Springs neighborhoods. 

During Modernism Week, I headed to Old Las Palmas to get inside the former residence of actor Adam West, best known for portraying Batman on the 1960s TV series.

Photo Essay: This Mid-Century Palm Springs Estate Shines With or Without Its Howard Hughes History

Every year, it's overwhelming to go through the Modernism Week schedule and try to figure out which tours to take. 

I'll admit, I get lazy and sometimes just choose based on a certain amount of star power. I haven't yet gone wrong with the Frank Sinatra, Kirk Douglas, William Holden, or Gummo Marx estates. 

 

But the Howard Hughes Residence in Palm Springs has a lot more to offer than just a celebrity pedigree of an eccentric aerospace engineer and movie mogul.

Photo Essay: 85 Years of The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank

There are five main movie production studios in Los Angeles, and only four of them give studio tours: Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony, and Universal. I'd visited them all (plus some smaller ones like the Fox lot, which didn't allow photos) except one—and the one holdout was the one that provides extremely limited public access.

Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. 

Photo Essay: Crazy for Planes at Mojave Air & Space Port

I've long been fascinated with the Mojave Air & Space Port, the home of Virgin Galactic and just a stone's throw away from Edwards Air Force Base.

 

I've skulked around the airport a bit in the past, but I always wanted to go to its monthly "Plane Crazy" event, which would give a little closer access to the runway (and maybe get a better view of the airplane graveyard). I've had it on my calendar for years and years.

Photo Essay: A Louisiana Bayou Boat Ride, No Gators in Sight

I couldn't imagine going to New Orleans for the first time and not taking a swamp tour.

Even though it had snowed 10 inches just three days before I arrived. Even though it was winter and it would be too cold for the alligators to be out in the water. (Instead, they're burrowing in some mud somewhere for heat.)

Fortunately, I was traveling with a group who wanted to do the same.
 

Photo Essay: The Big Easy, By Mule

I've never taken a horse-drawn carriage ride from one of the buggies in Central Park, even though I lived in New York City for 14 years. 

But I'll admit it's a nice way to explore a place, whether it's en caleche in Morocco or in a more yee-haw fashion in the California desert.

 

So when I saw carriages gliding along the snow-melted streets of New Orleans last weekend, I was intrigued. And then I found out they were pulled not by horses, but by mules (which can withstand the heat and humidity better)—and I knew I had to take a ride.