Getty Field Trip

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Gentle readers will recall that Kongo loves field trips with his two granddaughters.  This week the monkey climbed aboard a school bus with 22 budding classical scholars from Mrs. Hutson’s 3rd Grade Class and a handful of chaperones to visit the Getty Center in Los Angeles.  What a trip!  Most adults may think that art and 3rd graders won’t mix.  Not these kids!  They were all over this like Rococo on Versailles. The Getty Center is a wonderful place for children.  There are plenty of fountains, gardens, and outdoor things for them to experience.  Inside … well, inside it’s a…

Top O’ Topanga

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High above the San Fernando Valley, home of Valley Girls, most of the world’s pornography business, 2.9 million people and the 1994 Northridge earthquake is a L.A. Park known as Top O’ Topanga.  The nine acre park is a popular spot to view sunsets and provides spectacular views of the Santa Monica Mountain, the San Gabriel Mountains, and the Santa Susana mountains in the far distance.  Topanga is a name that means “crazy people” and it refers to the early settlers who used to run around naked and grow sunflowers on the mountain.  (Kongo just made that up).  Topanga is…

Titanic Exhibit

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There’s a great Titanic exhibit at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley now through January 7, 2018.  Looking at the artifacts and recreations and seeing the story of how it was discovered can give you goose bumps and it wouldn’t just be because it’s pretty cold in the exhibit area.  (Take a sweater)  Titanic is one of those timeless stories that keeps people from all over the world fascinated. Kongo was fascinated by a gigantic model of the sunken ship.  The detail of the wreck on the floor of the ocean was amazing. The monkey can only imagine the…

A Visit with the Gipper

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Today Kongo hauled himself over to Simi Valley (about ten miles from his treehouse) to finally see the Gipper.  That would be Ronald Reagan and his presidential library set on the top of a high hill overlooking the valley.  This was not a political visit.  Mrs. Kongo’s sister was visiting over the long weekend and it was on her bucket list.  Kongo is pretty much a democrat but that’s obviously not working out too well at the moment so, what the heck, might as well relive some of the glory years of the 1980s.  Kongo was a lot younger then,…

Local Heritage & History

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There’s more to Oxnard than you might think.  A lot more.   Most people the monkey knows actually don’t think too much about Oxnard.  It’s one of those places you drive through on the way to someplace else and if you do think of this coastal city, it’s unlikely that heritage and history come to mind.  Strawberries and bean fields surround the city.  Migrant farm workers earn their living bent over crops on the large agricultural enterprises on the fertile Oxnard Plain.  There’s an upscale marina district with homes and condos on the ocean but mostly Oxnard’s image is a…