July was our trip to Pasadena, nicknamed “the City of Roses.” I took this photo in the inner courtyard of its iconic City Hall.
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Championing the makers, artists, and wanderers in all of us.
July was our trip to Pasadena, nicknamed “the City of Roses.” I took this photo in the inner courtyard of its iconic City Hall.
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Angle brackets (>>) point to related info on our site.
Aug 25. There are programs throughout the United States to celebrate the Park Service’s 100th birthday.
Aug 19 at Reid Park, Demeester Performing Arts Pavilion, Tucson. Free admission.
>>Ongoing Phoenix-area movie events.
2nd Mondays, 6pm at Gangplank Chandler. Free monthly meet-up of artists and crafters. Learn something new or bring your own project to work on!
Aug 20, 10am-5pm at Flagstaff City Hall Parking Lot. Celebrate the National Park Service’s centennial with a free park fair, photo booths, and cake.
Sep 15-16 at Windmill Winery, Florence. Blogging conference with workshops, speakers, and networking.
>>Our visit to Windmill Winery.
Now – Sep 25 at Levitt Pavilion band shell in Memorial Park, Pasadena. Free concerts featuring both emerging and established musicians of many genres.
>>Our drive to Pasadena in one minute.
Aug 14, 8pm at Copper Still, Los Angeles. A monthly comedy-focused variety show at the bar inside Jaraguá Salvadoran restaurant.
Now – August 21 at Loveland Museum/Gallery, Loveland. Art with animals as the subject, which explores their complex relationship with humans.
Sep 3 – Oct 9 at Volcano Art Center, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park campus. Juried exhibition of multimedia artwork featuring depictions of the Alalā, Hawaii’s native crow, in anticipation of its reintroduction into the wild this September.
Now – Aug 31 at The Arts of Life North Shore studio, Glenview. Exhibition of new work that examines the ways we interpret “fancy,” at the intersection between elegance and tack, refinement and kitsch.
Aug 20, 1-4pm at Eagle Park, Lowell. Interactive pop-up museums with crafts and informational materials, neighborhood tours, and a community weaving project in celebration of the National Park Service’s 100th birthday.
Now – Aug 20 at Museum of Illustration at the Society of Illustrators, New York.
Aug 19, 4pm at Hayground School, Bridgehampton. At least 15 New York City and Long Island food trucks serve food and drink during the Community farmers market. Event benefits Hayground schoolyard projects providing culinary arts training for local kids. (Graphic via Edible East End.)
Now – Sep 4 at Portland Art Museum. Exhibition of Native American fashion designers from the 1950s to today.
Aug 20 at Devils Backbone Basecamp Brewpub & Meadows. Celebration of Virginia’s craft beer industry.
>>Over 60 participating breweries, including South Street, which we visited in Charlottesville.
Now – Aug 28 at Seattle Art Musuem. Exploration of how six historical artists used prints and drawings to express personal sentiments.
Monthly at National Museum of American History Demonstration Kitchen in Coulter Performance Plaza. Food history demonstration and talk by a guest chef and a Smithsonian host. Each month they will prepare a different recipe that ties back to the Museum’s exhibitions, research, and collections.
It seems to me that Indiana has an unusually high concentration of places named after other places. When I tried to ask my aunt about this, she didn’t think it was weird that her state has cities named things like Kokomo and Brazil. She brought up the fact that a lot of states have places named after presidents, for example.
But I’m not talking about the various Madison Counties or other places named after notable people or landscape features. I mean the ones named for a very different and far away place for no obvious reason. In Arizona, we have Miami and Florence. Indiana, however, has cities named Peru, Rome, Warsaw, Mexico, Cairo, Dublin, Paris, Alexandria, London, Manhattan, Jordan, Holland, Versailles, Shanghai, Milan, in addition to those above.
The first year I went to BlogHer, I challenged myself and fellow attendees to a photo scavenger hunt. It was just a fun way to share what we were seeing of the city and connect.
This year, BlogHer is in LA, and I thought a SoCal photo scavenger hunt would be in order.
If you’re in Los Angeles this week, see how many of the things on the list below you can spot. Tag photos #LAphotohunt16 on Instagram and/or Twitter.
#10 is for whatever else you think belongs on the list.
Since conference schedules tend to be really packed, feel free to take some creative license! (Like I did the last time.)
The list has some room for interpretation. “Waves,” for example, could be in the ocean or your hair or when you’re saying hello to friends.
If you’re not going, feel free to post whatever you’re doing this weekend and tag it #notinLAphotohunt16.
Afterwards, I’ll share some of the scavenger hunt results here. Can’t wait to see what you find!
I got a little obsessed hunting for local food options in the Anaheim Resort District (where the Disney Theme Parks and Anaheim Convention Center are located) ahead of Star Wars Celebration last year.
I talked to frequent Disneyland-goers about their favorite spots, exchanged emails with the Anaheim Convention Center and their concessions-provider Aramark, and even tried sorting through online business license records.
Once I was in Anaheim, I walked into restaurants I hadn’t been able to find information for to ask questions and pick up take-out menus.
In the end, I had this list of restaurants that are some combination of unique to the area, highly recommended, and/or offering something local, as well as being walking-distance from the Disney Parks and Anaheim Convention Center – without requiring admission.
So here it is, updated with current information and grouped geographically. I marked up a map to help you visualize it all.
Located between – but outside of – the Parks, Downtown Disney includes shopping, restaurants, and live music.
While this is not the place to find indie eateries, there are plenty of unique spots that are true to their location in Mickey’s backyard. (I mean, it’s not like every city has an Enchanted Tiki Bar.)
Find character dining, menus, accessibility, hours, etc. on Disneyland Resort’s site.
We walked by a lot of the places listed below en route from our hotel to the convention last year. We tried a few and liked breakfast at Chambers (and were guests of Hotel Indigo Anaheim), lunch at Tanor, late-night take-out from Sabrosada/Alertos.
We ran out of time to try the Pizza Press while we were in Anaheim, but the Pasadena location hosted us for lunch on our more recent trip. Summary of the upcoming review: it was super good!
In another post, I called this “Anaheim’s Local Food Corner,” because one unimpressive-looking strip mall contained 5 different non-chain restaurants.
This is a bigger, newer shopping center populated mostly by chains, including the Cheesecake Factory that the German Big Bang Theory fans we met last year were so excited to visit.
The Anaheim Convention Center is across the street from the Disneyland Resort. I was pleasantly surprised to learn they are serious about sourcing local and sustainable food and beverages. If you’re attending a conference or convention there, you can check out ecoGrounds / Java City Fair Trade coffee in the lobby. They may also have the Hearst Ranch Grill open with all-beef hamburgers from the Convention Center’s own herd of free-range, grass-fed cattle.
If you don’t have an event badge or just want to get out of the crowded Convention Center halls for a minute, here’s what’s right next door:
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A big thanks to Sarah Woloski of the Skywalking through Neverland podcast, Genevieve Eldred, Paul Barrie of the Window to the Magic podcast, and Whitney Drake for sharing their favorite spots!
The map is a screenshot from Apple Maps I modified in Skitch. Other photos by Phillip and me.