Photo Essay: A Night of 4.5 Million Lights at the Mission Inn

It's been hanging over my head for 10 years now that I hadn't really done the Mission Inn's Festival of Lights "right" yet.

 

Photo Essay: Looping Through Nevada's Scenic Valley of Fire

I seem to visit Valley of Fire every 11 or 12 years—my first time in February 2001, my second in October 2013, and my most recent in November 2024. But since it spans a whopping 40,000 acres, there was plenty more I could see.

 

This time I was at the eastern end of it, staying at a hotel in Moapa Valley and entering the park from the Northshore Road Toll Gate off Highway 169.

This Giant Concrete Arrow Pointed the Way for Pilots Delivering Mail By Air Between Las Vegas and Salt Lake City

I was in Southern Nevada for Thanksgiving to visit dear friends—practically family. So I wanted to spend plenty of time with them, but I also wanted to carve out an opportunity to go on a couple little adventures. 

That sent me in search of one of the many gigantic, concrete arrows that dot the desert in the Battle Born state—well, actually two of them. I had to abort the mission in search of the first one, the one in Mesquite, since I was coming back from The Donkey Museum a little too late to have enough sunlight to navigate the rough dirt road to get to it. 

So, two days later, I made a second try—this time to get to a second arrow, this one in the Moapa Valley community of Logandale, not far off the 15 Freeway. 

 

Photo Essay: Cruising Lake Mead on the Desert Princess to the Hoover Dam

Nevada's Lake Mead has been a source of much fascination for me—from the construction of the Hoover Dam (which formed the lake out of the waters of the Colorado River) to the flooding of nearby towns (like St. Thomas).

But while I'd spent some time around the lake—peering at it from a zipline at Bootleg Canyon, hiking around it through decommissioned railroad tunnels, even looking down at it from the dam itself—I hadn't yet had the chance to explore the lake from the lake itself.

Photo Essay: Christmas Spirit Has Taken Over the Bellagio Conservatory in Vegas

I was feeling pretty grumpy this past week and doing my best to embrace Thanksgiving. I wasn't ready for Christmas yet. 

 

And then I arrived in Vegas, legs stiff from a four-hour drive, already weary from the holiday festivities that had not yet come, and swung by the Bellagio to see what they'd done at the Conservatory this season. 

Photo Essay: Heritage Square Museum Has Thrown the Abandoned Church Doors Open

For the entire time I've lived in the Los Angeles area (nearly 14 years now), there's been one building at Heritage Square Museum I haven't been able to get into. 

All the mansions and the former train depot have posed no problem—but the former Lincoln Avenue Methodist Church, on the other hand, was a longtime holdout. 

Photo Essay: Celebrating Day of the Dead at the Birthplace of Los Angeles

I've liked cemeteries for all of my adult life, at least ever since I used to climb up behind Chapel House and spend some quiet time at the Colgate University Cemetery. 

 

But living in Southern California has taught me a little bit about how Mexican cultures honor the dead in a very living sort of way—namely, building altars (or ofrendas) where they honor the lives of those who've passed by making offerings (like sugar skulls) and setting up photos, dioramas, and more.

Photo Essay: The Pageantry and Personas of the WeHo Halloween Carnaval, 2024 Edition

The Halloween Carnaval has been drawing crowds to the streets of West Hollywood since 1987 (with a couple years taken off during the COVID-19 pandemic). 

Is it a parade? Well, not exactly—because there's no determined order of the participants and people walk in both directions. 

But is it really a carnival? Well, there's definitely some masquerading and "riotous excess."

I like to describe it as kind of a walkabout.

 

Photo Essay: 101 Years of the Anaheim Fall Festival (Upon the Centennial of the Halloween Parade)

The last Saturday in October is always a busy one—and try as I might, I never seem to make it to the Anaheim Fall Festival, which always lands on that day. 

 

This year, on the 100th year of the parade (but the 101st year of the festival), I finally made it—casting all other plans aside, because you just can't do everything you want to do all the time. 

Photo Essay: Bowlium, A 1950s Bowling Emporium That's Fit for the 21st Century

In the first year of the pandemic, I hauled my cookies a couple of times out to Montclair, California—about 45 miles east of where I live—to catch a movie at Mission Tiki Drive-In (which unfortunately closed in 2023). 

That's how I first became interested in the Bowlium bowling alley—which was fortunately nearby but unfortunately closed for COVID-19.

 *photo taken 2020

"The prominence of the building, which makes it clearly visible from the street on the parking lot's far side," writes Alan Hess in his book Googie Redux, "shows the importance of bowling alleys as community centers in the new suburban areas of the 1950s."