Recently the hubs and I visited our daughter and son-in-law in Los Angeles. We had not been out there since before quarantine started in 2020. We always have a blast when we visit them, and this time was no different.
When we visit family, it’s a different kind of trip than when we do more of a sightseeing-type thing. We don’t plan ahead and buy venue tickets in advance and squeeze in a bunch of activities. We usually don’t have an agenda or an itinerary. We just hang out together and try to soak up enough high quality family time to last until our next visit.
However.
When family lives in a place like LA that has a wealth of event options, it’s extremely tempting to play tourist. Also, I may have mentioned to my daughter one too many times that I always intend to visit this or that venue, but somehow we just never find the time. That girl can take a hint!
We did lots of cool stuff there last month. Today I’m only going to tell you about one of the things we did. I’ll save the others for another newsletter.
An odd confluence of events resulted in a most unanticipated delight: a visit to the Petersen Automotive Museum.
If you had asked me beforehand if I wanted to visit an auto museum, I probably would’ve said yes, because if a place has the word ‘museum’ in its name, I’m down. But it might’ve been further down the list, behind art and history and natural history and space and, well, just about anything else. We settled on this one because it involved cars, and we had two dudes with us (our husbands), and we thought this would be an easier sell than if we just said, “hey guys, we’re going to a museum”. Plus, believe it or not, rain was in the forecast, and this was a weatherproof activity.
Like I said: odd confluence.
Let me tell you something. The Petersen Automotive Museum was Amazing with a capital A. Just driving up to the place will blow your hair back. The building is super snazzy. Think Frank Gehry if he ever decided to jazz things up with a little massive splash of color. And they have their own parking garage. Of course they do, silly! It’s a car museum! Seriously, though: dedicated parking is key in LA.
Inside, there are three floors’ worth of automotive wonder to boggle your mind. They start you off on the third floor, and you work your way down. The third floor has a combination of historic vehicles, like Ford’s various Models. And of course since we are in LA, there are lots of vehicles made famous in movies and TV. Yes, they had a DeLorean.
That was all well and good. Off to a strong start. And the super-knowledgeable docent was the cherry on top. Dude knew his stuff. But I have to say my favorite part was the exhibit on something called ‘hypercars’.
Hypercars are cars that are extreme in every way. Extremely fast. Extremely cutting edge. Extremely beautiful. EXTREMELY expensive.
Apparently, when you are stupid rich and you get the urge for a new ride, you don’t just roll down to the Ford dealer. There are creatives out there, auto designers/car artists (cartists?) who do nothing but design one-offs for gazillionaires. Fun fact: when you don’t have to worry about mass market appeal, you can design some amazing s***.
You can design a car in whatever color you want, made out of the hottest new trendy material for auto bodies (carbon fiber). You can have an interior with more hand-detailing than the Gutenberg bible. And that’s just the stuff you can see. Under the hood, you can have world-record speed, or bleeding edge e-car tech, or just about any other space age combination.
We also popped in to a couple of smaller exhibits. I learned that the original McLaren distinctive signature color is not just any old orange, but ‘papaya orange’. And in a true match made in automotive art heaven, the Andy Warhol Mercedes-Benz exhibit was every bit as satisfying as it sounds.
I severely underestimated how much spending the day at a car museum would feed my creative soul. The sensuous curves, the voluptuous colors, the divine marriage of art and technology. Creatives boldly thinking outside the box. Pursuing, persisting, even demanding that the stuff of dreams transform into a speeding bullet, one-of-a-kind dream machine.
Lesson learned. When someone asks you if you want to go to a museum, don’t quibble about which type of museum. Just say YES.
I will leave you with three things.
For those of you who may have fallen out of love with the Disney franchise, you may enjoy this article. Makes me want to hop on a plane.
Have you been watching the FIFA World Cup? Of course you have. As a parent of kids who played soccer, I found this story and photo so relatable and charming.
I discovered this curry recipe during quarantine and have been making a version of it ever since. Feel free to improvise if you’re not a vegan. We like it with shrimp.
My latest book, Just Say Yes, is available now on Amazon. Brody Morgan grew up starring in commercials for his dad's mega food corporation. What will Brody do when he discovers what he's really been selling?