California Curiosities

Once leaving the airport we started heading towards the Palm Springs area, where we would be spending the night.  Of course we made a few stops on the way there.

Once of the more unusual places we have seen was the Donut Hole.  The Donut Hole is a drive through donut shop.  By drive through we mean literally a drive through.  You drive through the middle of the donut, place your order, and drive out.  You have to see it to believe it.  The donuts were actually pretty good too.  We didn’t know what to get so we just asked for a dozen assorted donuts.   Since we arrived in LA early in the morning it was actually still morning when we got our donuts so part of the dozen became our breakfast and a snack later in the day and for the next 3 days as well.

Our breakfast for the week.

After leaving the Donut hole we headed to McDonald’s.  Actually we headed to two McDonald’s restaurants.  We did not get anything to eat; in fact you can’t get anything at these restaurants.  What makes these two McDonalds’ unique is that every single McDonald’s commercial is filmed at one of these locations.  The locations are right next door to each other and are fenced off so people can’t go in but they look like the real thing.  They are in the middle of an industrial park which makes them seem out of place but since you can’t buy anything it really doesn’t matter.  Ever since seeing these restaurants we’ve been glued to the TV trying to see a McDonald’s commercial.

After leaving Mickey D’s we headed to another unusual place.  We visited the first of two outdoor art museums made from everyday things that people use.  The first was located at a Mexican restaurant.  The owner of the restaurant decorated the grounds with all kinds of junk art sculptures and even a church made of bottles.  Just about every piece of household stuff you could find seemed to be incorporated into some of the sculptures.  They even had a sidewalk made of oyster shells.   It seems some people have a lot of time on their hands.

Nighttime security lighting

Random stuff cemented in the sidewalk

More stuff in the sidewalk

Closeup of the two skeletons' lower bodies

2 Skeletons

Oyster shell sidwalk

Inside the bottle church

Bottle church walls

Even the rooftops have art

After the first junk art sculpture museum we continued towards Palm Springs.  If you have ever seen Pee Wee’s Big Adventure then you will recognize the dinosaurs that we visited next.  Besides Pee-Wee’s big adventure the location became famous in the 80’s for everything from Coke commercials to rock videos.

After visiting T-Rex we finally made our way into Palm Springs.  After hitting up the Hard Rock Café for our magnet bottle opener we visited the second junk art sculpture museum of the day.  This one was in a residential area in a guy’s yard.  There was a sign out front advising us to send a text to a phone number if we were interested in seeing the art close up, so we did just that.  Within a few minutes we got a response saying to come on by and let ourselves in.  We did just that and then found ourselves in another quirky place full of sculptures and statues made from really just about everything.  There were giant robots made from computer peripherals, thousands of strands of Christmas lights designed into the art, musical instruments, car parts, household appliances, and just about everything else you could think of.  From a distance each of these sculptures looked simply like giant robots or sculptures but when you looked at them close up you could see the imagination and work that went into creating these things.  After spending about a half hour exploring this guy’s yard he took us into his house where he showed us some more of his art.  We later learned that he has been featured in the NY Times.

Close up of the robot in previous picture

Another close up shot

Nice use of Christmas lights

Close up of previous picture

We then traveled on a tram up to the top of a mountain overlooking the city of Palm Springs.  The tram was unique in that the floor of the round tram car rotated around as it climbed up the mountain, meaning there was not a single bad seat in the tram as everyone got to see the same views as the tram slowly spun around.  While the temperature down in the valley was about 80 degrees it was easily 35 degrees cooler up on top of the mountain.  There were also patches of snow on the mountain with evergreens while down on the bottom was desert and palm trees.  The views were pretty amazing as well!  

Notice the helipad on top of the tower.  Would hate to have to use that.

Some of the views up top

The trees look like it gets windy up there!

Back down on the bottom of the tram ride we got ripped off for a quarter.  There were telescopes that you put a quarter into and can see things close up (many scenic viewpoints have these).  What made this interesting was that there was a sign saying you could put your camera up to the viewfinder and take a picture and you would get the same view as if you were looking through the viewfinder.  Ok, we’ll bite.  We paid the quarter, adjusted the focus and put our camera up to the viewfinder only to find out they ripped us off!  All we ended up getting was a close up picture of the viewfinder.

The sign says we can do it.

Seems simple enough, just put the camera up to the viewfinder.

And this is the picture we got!

After what seemed like a long day we finally made our way to the hotel.  We stopped for a nice meal of Mexican food before calling it a day.