Sailing and sightseeing: Southern California, Days 4-5 (20-21 July 2017)

Anaheim is not just Disneyland

Muzeo

On Day 4 we visited a new place to us – but not to Carolyn – the Muzeo Museum and Cultural Centre in Anaheim (which is most famous as the home of the original Disneyland). Carolyn had discovered the Muzeo when it had a very popular exhibition recently, Dressing Downton, featuring the fashions used in Downton Abbey. What a shame we missed that. Even though the exhibition closed in April, there is still evidence of it at the Muzeo, as you’ll see in the photos. I guess it makes a good drawcard still.

There were no exhibitions in the main building, but there were a few in the associated building, the historic 1908 Carnegie Library. It’s on the United States National Register of Historic Places and was built using a grant from Andrew Carnegie. Muzeo’s website says it is only remaining Andrew Carnegie-financed public library left standing in Orange County. It was the city library until 1963, and was then used for offices by the City of Anaheim in the 1970s, before becoming the Anaheim Museum in 1987. In 2007, it was added to the Muzeo. 

There were three exhibitions in the Carnegie building. Two were temporary exhibitions – Brushstrokes (calligraphy art by Young Hoon Kim) and an exhibition of student art, titled “Crops of love”, from the Yeda Art Academy. This latter had no signage in the actual exhibition, and the description on the website is very minimal. We’d love to have known whether the students were given a theme or idea because we could see certain imagery reappearing, and there was a surreal element to most. Anyhow, both these exhibitions, free of charge, were interesting enough.

We all, however, most liked the third, and permanent exhibition, the small History of Anaheim one. It’s a traditional static exhibition of images, texts and some objects organised in chronological display panels/cases. It’s packed with information and we each found different facets of particular interest. Gratifyingly, too, it starts with some geology followed by Native American history (which dates back some 20,000 years), before moving to the Mission period and the arrival of the Germans in the mid 1850s – and then on through time into the twentieth century. 

Anaheim was named by the 50 German families who settled there in the 1859 and who established a now-defunct wine industry. It remained primarily a rural community – turning to oranges after the wine – until Disneyland arrived in 1955.

Packing House

For lunch, Carolyn suggested a new-to-us development, the Anaheim Packing House. Its website says:

one of the few remaining packing houses from the agricultural era for which Orange County is named, the Anaheim Citrus Packing House is a landmark in both County and City history. Built in 1919 at the edge of downtown Anaheim and along the Southern Pacific rail line, the Packing House was a hub of commerce for the area. Local farmers arrived to unload trucks of freshly picked citrus to begin the process of washing, grading and eventual packing into wooden crates. Once completed, the crated and labeled citrus would be loaded onto rail cars parked on the side of the building to be shipped nationwide.

It is now full of restaurants and food markets. With so many choices, we all chose food from different vendors. I chose a Japanese-style poki (that’s how it was spelt, not poké) bowl, while Len chose some Indian food. and Carolyn a cooling shaved ice concoction. 

Then it was home for a quiet afternoon, which is our favourite way to holiday – be active in the morning, have a quiet afternoon, then perhaps be busy in the evening again. It doesn’t always work that way but we do like it if it can!

Sailing (1) on Eastlake

It did work that way, today though, because we had a boating-on-the-lake date. Unfortunately, Len, who’s been a bit unwell, declined to join us, knowing there’d be another opportunity. So, with Prosecco, nibbles and Carolyn’s boat licence in hand, she and I went to the lake (the little artificial lake that is) where we met one of her reading group friends, and spent a very pleasant hour boating around, talking family, travel and books, while imbibing food and drink. A bit of a hoot really, but fun for all that – and we did see ducks and an egret, as well as the odd garden gnome, though no turtles (as we’ve seen before).

Another day, more shopping and sailing (2) on the lake

With Len still feeling off-colour, Carolyn and I hit the shops again, looking for some items requested from home and some items she needed. We ended up at Brea Mall’s Nordstrom cafe for lunch where we repeated our previous lunch of salad for me and cake for her!

The rest of the day followed yesterday’s pattern. We had an afternoon rest, and then went sailing on the lake again, with more Prosecco and nibbles. This time another of Carolyn’s reading group friends joined us, along with Len. Once again talk focused on families, travel and books, particularly Jane Austen – the novels, the sequels (including Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligible which, fortunately, she didn’t like, so we were all on similar wavelengths!) and film adaptations. The hour went very fast.

We ate late – sitting outside in the evening cool – on a tilapia fish based meal cooked by yours truly, to give our hostess a break. The night ended with our watching our now favourite TV shows, Rachel Maddow and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Noah did make us laugh many times with statements such as:

“Donald Trump’s presidency hasn’t been going well lately and by lately I mean ever”

and, he “Puts the fun in fundamentally unfit to be President”

Noah also shared Trump’s comment on Napoleon (from New York Times transcript):

Well, Napoleon finished a little bit bad. … And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death.

From this he explored, as comedians do, this idea of the “extracurricular activities” that prevented Napoleon from going to Russia. We wonder what news of the world our readers are hearing?

Anyhow, all in all, another pleasant couple of days in Southern California – for me, anyhow. We are hopeful that Len is now on the improve and will be soon ready to join in more activities.

Today’s trivia

Oranges were created as a hybrid of the mandarine and pomelo! (And apparently Navels, which grow only on grafts, therefore never mutate and are always clones of each other.

Today’s images

Still

This slideshow requires JavaScript.