Wicked is Wicked Good!

One of the highly anticipated intern events planned for this summer was going to see Wicked at the Pantages theatre downtown. I was so excited to not only get to see a musical, but a well-known one like Wicked. We went two Thursdays ago (July 19).

When I arrived at the theatre, there was a long line outside, but I thought it was strange that I would have to stand in it since we had a planned cocktail hour before the show. So I walked up to someone who worked there and he ushered me inside. I felt like such a celebrity! We socialized while having some heavy hors d'ouevres and drinks (I stuck to water since I was parched), and were pleasantly surprised to find out Toyota was paying for each of us to get a t-shirt! We got to pick from a few styles, and I chose a cute green one with the title of the main song from the show "Defying Gravity".

Apparently, the Pantages used to be the site of the Academy Awards and I could see why. The inside was beautifully adorned. I took a couple of pictures of the ceiling inside the theatre, but then an usher came over and told me I could not take photos inside. Feeling suddenly like I was under interrogation from the CIA with all those clips from spy movies running through my head, I asked him if he wanted me to delete the photos I had already taken, thinking maybe he would even want to confiscate my camera! He said no, and my friends got a good laugh about it. :-)

The show itself was great. I was interested to see how they made that book into a musical, but they did a pretty good job. I felt the second act was rushed since they tried to cram all the political plot and character development in. But the overall message was a good one -- being different is okay and freedom of speech and liberty for all and all that. The songs were good as were the voices, although a bit on the nasally side for my taste. My favorite songs by far were "Popular", sung by Glinda the Good Witch, played by the very funny Megan Hilty and "Defying Gravity" (the song to end Act 1) sung by Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West), played by Eden Espinosa. If you get a chance, look up the LA production of Wicked on YouTube.

If you get a chance to see this show, I would definitely recommend it.

Coastal Trip Episode VI: Return of the San Luis Obispo (and me to LA!)

Saying goodbye to the fishies and the coast was a bit sad, but I couldn't complain about the scenery on the way back down through the Central Valley. I couldn't help but think of the work I had been doing this summer as I drove through these rural areas with not much around except farms or vineyards (with NO buildings as far as I could see, which left me to wonder where the people were that took care of the vineyards??). [Basically I have been working on a project this summer to evaluate low-volume dealers, most of which are located in remote areas, so that's why it reminded me of that.]

This was the place I stopped to get gas and as you can see, it was in a wide valley surrounded by mountains. I wish I had better photos of this part of the trip.

More scenery as I drove along...

After about 2.5 hours of driving, I came to San Luis Obispo, which used to be one of the only stops between LA and San Francisco and originated the word "motel". I wish I had more time to spend there since it looked like a cute little town, much like Santa Barbara. But I did get to stop at the mission and walk around for a bit.

The mission had some beautiful gardens in the back.

In this shot, you can see a little bit of the mountains that surrounded the town.

So then I had to be on my way. This time, I drove along a different road coming into Santa Barbara, right along the Gaviota coast. As you may remember from my post about horseback riding, we rode above and just to the south of the Gaviota coast. It's an area just north of SB, and the absolute BEST part of this drive was that I could actually see the largest of the Channel Islands off the coast that evening! It took my breath away every time I turned my head to get a glimpse of it. It was amazing to see this huge mountainous piece of land in the middle of the water. Especially since I had been by that spot several times before and hadn't seen it because of the darn haze and ocean fog. I didn't manage to get a photo, but I really wish you had all been there to see it.

There was one last scenic vista on the way to Santa Barbara, and I had to stop, especially since the sun was setting.

As I was standing there enjoying the sunset, I heard a train in the distance. It was an Amtrak passenger train coming right down the shoreline. I thought it was so romantic -- it just made the moment! Just imagine standing here, listening to the ocean waves, seeing the sun set behind mountains, and hearing the whistle and clickety-clack of the train going by. Ahhh...

In this photo, you can just see the train coming towards me to the upper right of the car (it has its light on).

One last self-taken photo and I was on my way for the final time, down the homestretch back to Los Angeles. I encountered the same traffic in Santa Barbara caused by that flaming torch I mentioned in my horseback riding post, but otherwise, it was smooth sailing. This was definitely the best weekend road trip I took being out here this summer and I was sad to see it end. But at the same time, I was definitely feeling a little lonely doing all this stuff by myself. One of the lines in a Keane song I listened to on the way back hit home: "For a lonely soul, you're having such a nice time." Well, luckily I can share it with you all through photos, but someday I will go back and take someone with me to share it with in person!

Coastal Trip Episode V: The Monterey Aquarium Strikes Back

Videos have now been posted! (In case you checked this earlier when they were not up yet)

I got to the aquarium on Sunday in the afternoon, a little later than I had hoped. But I calculated that I would still have a few hours to make the rounds of the exhibits. However, I did have to park a few blocks away and walk to the aquarium and when I arrived, had to stand in a very long line to buy tickets. But the line actually moved along quickly, so I was in soon enough. The line gave me a chance to snap this picture of the outside. I guess the aquarium is in an old cannery building.



This is a giant octopus clinging to the glass of its tank. Pretty cool, eh?


I want to take this opportunity to talk about the size of the tanks. They were huge! I can't remember the exact number of gallons, but you will see from the photos how big they were. This aquarium has won several awards, and they are well-deserved.


This was the first tank I saw, which had various fish and sharks swimming about. In this photo, one of the sharks is coming right for me!




This was one of the huge exhibits I was talking about. It is called the Kelp Forest. This is just one side of it! When I first got there, there was a feeding show going on, so there was a guy in SCUBA gear inside the tank with little squid to feed the fish. He was talking through a mic to another interpreter outside the tank.

There was a school of these silver fish that were swimming around in a clump. The shiny silver looked really pretty against the blue water.

Then it was on to the ocean otters! They were so adorable! There were four of them, and they were all floating like this, sleeping right next to one another. Actually, the fourth one was a little off from the others, against one of the walls, floating into fake kelp (see photo below). This just reminded me so much of the video circulating around YouTube of the otters holding hands while sleeping. I guess they really do that often in the wild!



Here is the fourth otter who had flipped over to face us with the kelp in his mouth.



Okay, now I am not usually a fan of jellyfish, but I have to say this was my favorite exhibit. Just the way they did the tanks was awesome! So I have lots of photos of this one tank. The jellyfish were placed along with some other kinds of fish in the "Drifters" exhibit. The tanks were so cool because you could not see the entire tank. For example, at one tank, you were looking basically at a window watching a crowd of fish swimming quickly by you, but only in one direction. Then they disappeared. In the jellyfish tanks, the jellyfish would float down from some unseen place at the top of the tank and disappear below the edge of the window. So, I guess the tanks were circular or something. It had such an awesome effect. Also, as you can see with the jellyfish, they were placed in a monotone tank and then lit up. I didn't take photos of the other types of jellys, but I thought these were the prettiest anyway. You can get a sense of, once again, the size of the tank.




Now, at the entrance to the Drifters exhibit, there was this awesome thing -- around the ceiling they had a tank with fish swimming in a circle. Here's a video:

Another sweet thing they had at the aquarium was this wave crash tunnel. You stood inside it and they had fake waves crash over you. I edited two takes together from different angles.

Okay, this next photo may be a little tough to see, but hopefully you can at least make out the silhouettes of the people to get an idea of the size of this tank. I just looked it up, and it is a 1-million gallon exhibit (said with a Dr. Evil intonation makes it sound as big as it looked in person!) called the Outer Bay exhibit. It's to give the viewer a sense of the open water. There were GIANT blue fin tuna in here, hammerhead sharks, a sea turtle, and the most incredible looking fish called ocean sunfish. They were these HUGE white flat fish. I didn't get a photo of them, but you should look them up.

A video of some of the big fish and the sea turtle.

I then went to a show about life in the deep ocean -- basically a Q & A session -- that was pretty interesting. It reminded me of my biology class once upon a time in college where we saw a video of those cool deep ocean creatures that light themselves up. At the time I decided that was the career I wanted to pursue. But then I decided I didn't really want to spend hours in a tiny submarine sinking to the bottom of the deep, black, cold, ocean!

Anyway, then I went to the river otter exhibit, where they had 4 different types of river otters. The first tank was the most playful. I believe there are 4 otters in this photo, playing with one another in the water. I have video that makes it much easier to make out.

Okay now I generally feel that penguins have gone the way of pirates in terms of being over used, but this was the funniest thing I saw that day. Just a bunch of penguins bobbing right against the glass.

So my camera battery had finally died at the end of my visit (had another one in the car), but as I was walking out on the deck behind the aquarium, I noticed a crowd of people looking at something. I walked over and saw this adorable sight. I used my phone to snap a photo, so it's kind of hard to see. But this is a mother ocean otter with a baby on its stomach. Do you see the brown ball of fuzz just below her head? That is the baby. It basically kind of wiggled around on her stomach as she cleaned it. It was so cute and a great way to end my visit to the aquarium!


I would recommend this aquarium to anyone interested in marine life who is out in Northern California. I think it is definitely worth a visit and very well done.

Coastal Trip Episode IV: A Carmel Valley Hope

I arrived in Carmel Valley around 7:30 pm, just in time for dinner. As I walked into my future roomie's house, I was greeted by a full house, warm welcome, and great food! Lucky for me, Shannon's family and friends are dinner party people, so I relaxed over hors d'ouerves, wine, soothing music, a beautiful view, and good conversation. Then we made up some dinner of spaghetti, salad, grilled veggies, and bread. After the nice dinner, we gathered around the living room table to chat some more over fruit for dessert where I learned of the history of the house and how it came into her family's hands.

The house had once been owned by a woman who was an artist and one-time well-known hat maker in New York. Shannon's grandfather had known the woman's husband from Texas and her parents became friends with the couple when they moved out to California. Shannon's parents eventually bought the house and when the woman passed away, began coming to stay there. But the house is still full of the woman's furniture and art, and it makes for a very unique and homey place. While I was there, I couldn't help but feel like I was in Sperryville. I think it was the ties to Texas and art, as well as the house itself -- it looked like some other houses I had seen in Sperryville. This all together made me feel like I had arrived at an oasis.

The view from the balcony, overlooking Carmel Valley. On Sunday morning we heard the call go out for volunteer firemen -- just a simple siren that echoed throughout the valley. I thought it was so neat that they did that -- no phone trees needed. It made me think that's how it must have been way back in the day when villages of people lived close together in a valley or canyon.

The porch had many hummingbird attractors on it, so we watched hummingbirds fly up to them as we sat in the house.

The woman who owned this house did many pieces of art in her later years made of little pieces of paper. She did this piece after her husband passed away, called My Heart Leaps Up, after a Wordsworth poem. It was amazing. (Yes, that is a 3-dimensional wave.)

This is a bit of the piece close up so you can see what I mean by "little pieces of paper"!

The house was actually made up of 4 buildings -- the main house, this cottage where we stayed, a garage, and an office which was the woman's old studio. Between were gravel paths and fountains.

This is where we girls slept (Shannon also had two other friends visiting that weekend). I had to jump at the opportunity to take the loft. :-)

My view as I woke up looking out to the valley.

This is Shannon! I really appreciated the chance to visit her and stay in this beautiful place, especially on such short notice.

I felt like Odysseus, having traveled a long way, visiting Circe to get some respite and rejuvenation (although reading wikipedia I'm not sure if that is the right person I'm thinking of, but you know, where he gets direction and healing to go back home). I must say in reference to the titles of this portion of my blog (thank you Star Wars), this one is so appropriate: A Carmel Valley Hope. I didn't realize how violent the other episode titles have been! Anyway, I guess this worked out perfectly. :-)

Sunday morning I had to be on my way, and it was off to the much anticipated Monterey Bay Aquarium!