weekend excursions

Drew and I have done a little bit of exploring these past couple weekends. First up, we headed to Costa Mesa to check out the Noguchi Gardens, this little sculpture garden tucked away among a couple office buildings. I love outdoor sculptures (one of my favorite places is the Sculpture Garden at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis), so I was eager to check out Noguchi Gardens. It was kind of cool, but very small with few sculptures. The sculptures were great, but I wasn't that impressed because it all seemed so corporate since the garden itself was enveloped by these tall office buildings. It was definitely not like the sculpture gardens at the Walker or the Getty. Anyway, here are a couple pictures:

Some cool cacti:

Next up, Drew and I headed up to Huntington Library, near Pasadena. Huntington Library is comprised of a library, art collections, and botanical gardens. There are a few buildings that make up the actual library and house American and European art, but the best part of the Huntington Library is actually outdoors. There are over a dozen themed gardens on a property that covers about 200 acres. It is seriously cool, and I was so impressed. We started off in the Desert Garden, which had an excellent collection of cacti and succulents.

I think my grandpa used to cultivate these:

I love the contrast in both color and texture here- the bright, soft flowers next to the prickly cactus:

I love, love, love cacti! I got really excited when I saw these:
and these:
oh, and these too:
I love the bright colors:

I adore this view. I did not want to leave the Desert Garden. Of all the gradens, we probably spent the longest period of time in this one.
Next up, we went to the Japanese Garden:

Drew said that this tree reminded him of Dr. Seuss' art style:

We also checked out the Herb Garden, the Rose Garden, the Chinese Garden, and the Jungle Garden. And we took some time to check out the art collections. Somewhere along the way, we came across these fabulous flowers:

We ended the day at the Lily Ponds:

After leaving Huntington Library, we headed over to the Santa Monica Pier to ride the ferris wheel and to eat dinner. A couple views from the top of the ferris wheel:

Well, that's all I've got for you! It's been an adventurous couple of weeks!