03.31.07

Playing Tourist Part 2

Posted in Anything goes, Historical Trivia, History, Uncategorized at 11:50 pm by Administrator

My cousins left tonight. Their vacation has ended after two months here in the U.S. I will miss them, and hopefully they’ll be able to visit again in another couple years. We wanted to take them to the Griffith Park Observatory, but I didn’t know that things have changed since re-openning after remodelling. It used to be that anyone could just drive up there and visit the observatory. Now, reservations have to be made 24 hours in advance. Apparently, that requirement was made last November, cripes. That spoiled our trip up there. So instead of going inside the observatory, we took a walk on one of the trails along the park. I was able to take a picture of the observatory from the trail. It’s hard to see the observatory in the thumbnail, so click onto the picture for a larger view. The observatory is off to the right with the dark domes over the white buildings. Far behind the observatory in the haze are the buildings of Downtown, Los Angeles. The next picture is of my youngest son, Aaron, and me at the beginning of the trail we took. Since I didn’t orginally plan on taking a hike, I wore the wrong type of shoes, ack! But all went well anyway because the particular trail we took was moderate and not difficult at all, yet gave us a nice view of the city. Afterwards we ate lunch at Real Food Daily in Los Angeles, then took them shopping along Melrose and Little Tokyo in Downtown. I got to pick up a well-illustrated book on Chinese Knotting, which is something I had been wanting to learn.

The following day my sister took our cousins to Amoeba Records in Hollywood, then we met up at the Peterson Automotive Museum on the Miracle Mile. I like the Peterson Automotive Museum, so took a lot of pictures from there. Unfortunately, we got there a day too early because the new exhibit openned the next day called, “Going Topless in Style.” As you might guess, those exhibit cars will be of convertibles. Oh, well, we got to see some other nice cars, so we had fun anyway. The beginning of the museum starts off with the early model cars like this 1903 Cadillac. Who would have thunk this was a Caddy? The next picture is of one of the first cars made in Los Angeles by Earle C. Anthony. He was 17-years-old. This car (cart, heheh) was powered by a 1.5 -horsepower motor. Hold on to yer hats! Ha! One fun thing about this museum is that it has exhibits which reflect not only the history of automobiles, but also that of Los Angeles. My sister and I got a kick out of the “Helms Bakery Truck” because we remember so well when we were kids and that Helms truck used to come by selling donuts and candies. Boy did we love climbing into the truck while the driver pulled out the drawers of donuts and candies for us to choose! Here we are now about 35 years later. We no longer see them rolling down the street. Here’s what the drawers that held the goodies looked like. Once my sister was lucky enough to get a whole dollar, ha! When the Helm’s man drove down our street, we stopped him and bought “100″ pieces of bubble gum, ha ha ha! At that time they used to cost 1 cent each. Eh, if that didn’t date me, then maybe the name of the bubblegum will. Can you say, “Bazooka?” LOL

Another part of Los Angeles history are the Indy racing cars. Here are some that were made in the Southland. And of course, since Hollywood is such a part of Los Angeles, Hollywood movie cars as well as cars own by some of the movie stars are also on display at the Peterson. Here’s one of the Bat mobile. Apparently, it was made from a 1967 Chevy Impala found in a London junk yard. Rolls-Royce jet engine components were used to form the hood-mounted intake, and the turbine blades in the nose piece were scavenged from a British Harrier figher jet, ha! Don’t you just love it? No, that’s not Michael Keaton behind me, it’s batman!

Now lemme see what else they had. Here on the right is a proto-type of the Mach 5, eh, I’m dating myself again, but boy did I love Speed Racer! And here on the left is another car that was purchased by Ali Khan for Rita Hayworth. Must be nice to be rich and beautiful, huh? Ha! Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top frequently has some of his cars on display at the Peterson like his “Cadzilla,” and “Hogzilla.” And next to that was the Kisscat. I only got a picture of the back end with the guitars or “axes.”

Moving along we come to a 2006 Ford GT pictured on the right. Oh la la, this baby can reach 60mph in about 3 minutes and hit a top speed of about 205mph. And displayed right next to her (and pictured to the left) is a Bugatti. . . top speed about 235mph (that is if memory serves me correctly. It could be a top speed of 255mph). Hold on ta yer wigs, babies! Make sure those dentures are secure, ha!

Well, we weren’t quite ready to fly out of there just yet. Instead we headed upstairs and discovered the “discovery station” where we got to climb into some of the cars and a police motorcycle. As you can see, things slowed down a lot over here. What were the top speed of these cars? 35 mph? Eek! And the museum provided some props like the hat and coat I’m wearing. I couldn’t convince my cousin to use the props for the men, shucks. We also climbed aboard an old street car downstairs. Then I bumped into Laurel and Hardy. Oop! I can assure you that there were a lot more cars that I would have loved to include here, but time and space cuts me short, awww. But I do want to squeeze in one last shot of a custom built armored White House limousine. It was built in 1942 for Franklin D. Roosevelt, and also later used by Harry S. Truman. This was Lincoln’s first armored car built for the protection of the U.S. President. Too bad Kennedy wasn’t riding in this thing. . .

Well, it’s late, so toodles for now.

Marlakins

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