Goodbye California...

Yesterday, after a leisurely breakfast and lunch we set off to co-incide with nap time to go to the Getty Center, which is a big fancy museum set up by oil billionaire J Paul Getty.

The 4th floor of a 7-storey underground car park

The car park is just off the main road, and the museum is at the top of the hill.  There is a train that takes you in air-conditioned comfort to the top of the hill.

The setting for the museum buildings is obviously designed to make an impression.  It is absolutely amazing.

The building is also designed to make an impression.

It is filled with priceless antiquities and works of art by artists even I have heard of.

Everything is meticulously tied down to stop it falling over and smashing when there is an earthquake.  I just imagined my Grandma with a couple of tubes of Araldite when I thought about it.

They used to write books and colour in the pictures by hand back in the day.

There was an exhibition on art in California in the mid 20th century.  There was a lot of censure at that time and people were outraged by explicit photographs and painitings.  This one, and others feature lots of nakedness and boobies and were painted hundreds of years ago.  Perhaps people were outraged then too.

I could have taken a couple of days to see everything.  It's a fantastic place, with some really special pieces of art inside.

My brother in law noticed on the way out that comments slips in art galleries (especially ones with no entrance fee) normally have forms you can fill out to join up for newsletters and make charitable, tax-deductible donations to the upkeep of the facilities.  However, if you fill in a comments form here, the Getty Foundation gives $10 of its own money to stimulate arts projects.

After we got home and had some dinner, Mike had to go to away on work, so I gave him a lift to a little airport about 20 minutes drive away in the Camry.  Final Douglas/Camry mileage is 3922 miles.  Camry is amazing.

The moon was out and there was some moisture in the air making this funny halo effect.

This morning, my sister went to work and took my Niece to daycare so I have the morning to pack and get ready.  My lift to the airport should arrive around midday.

I have had rather a good time in the colonies.