BOXES 124-125: Out West: Las Vegas to San Francisco.

The Strip in Las Vegas, summer of 1978: long before it was transformed by the theme-park casinos of the late '80s and the '90s. It looked dazzling enough to us (Gloria, Max and me), after travels through mostly desert. Our stop was only an overnighter--we were headed to Santa Monica the next day, and Max and I up to San Francisco a few days after.

We'd spent that morning at the Grand Canyon, South Rim. After taking lots of pictures the afternoon and evening before (see previous post), I took none at all that morning--I guess I was now simply wanting to enjoy the views, though I may also have run out of rolls of film. In any case, our plan was to drive up to Las Vegas (for a different sort of Western spectacle) and then to Gloria's family's place in Santa Monica. We had car trouble on the

way to Nevada, so we arrived in the city after dark. I see that I took a photo of Lake Mead along the way--it looks like twilight--but none of Hoover Dam, though I remember driving over it. I also remember the spectacular spread of the lights of the city when we drove over a ridge and descended toward Downtown, where the next three pics were taken:

Somewhere, probably on the Strip before we got to the Stardust, I took the photo of one

of the famous 'themed' wedding chapels of Las Vegas--the Hitching Post in this case. We must have stayed at a budget hotel that night, though I don't remember where. In the morning we explored a couple of casinos, and--I see from my numbered photos--went back to Lake Mead. Since it's in the opposite direction from our drive to Los Angeles, I have no idea why, except that we might have decided to enjoy a swim before driving across the Mohave to L.A.

Arriving at Gloria's house was a highlight of the trip: I remember the warm reception from her family (her parents and four brothers lived there at the time, not to mention a dog and a parrot), the beauty of the house and grounds, the bustle as various friends of the family drifted in and out. I took no photos that afternoon, but I did take a few the next day (I think it was), when we walked down to the ocean, less than a half mile away, and south to Venice Beach. My camera had started 'acting up' again, so some of the photos in this post are quite disappointing, though they serve to trigger memories. Here is Windward Avenue, just off the Boardwalk, looking very different from when Orson Welles used it as the location for a seedy border town in Touch of Evil:

And here is a shot looking from the Boardwalk toward the ocean:

But considering how wildly colorful the scene was, I'm surprised that I didn't try to capture it in photos. At least I got a decent one of the canals of Venice and their enchantingly laid-back and in those days relatively affordable residences:

I did take a few photos of Gloria's place, though probably after I drove Max up to San Francisco and returned to spend more time in L.A. (My slides' numbering is squirrelly at this point.) Here is the front of their wonderful Arts-and-Crafts bungalow. The dining room (the windows on the right) had a view of the Pacific in the distance.

The living room had a fantastic ceiling:

. . . and the adjoining dining room had a stained-glass window and well as built-in Arts-and-Crafts furniture:

There was impressive vegetation all around, including a blooming jacaranda tree in the back yard and a canopy of hibiscus plants. (Again, I regret that the photos didn't turn out and scan better.)

The side garden was thick with flowers, and a couch that had been moved outside provided a great reading spot--which I took advantage of:

The book I'm reading is, I'm pretty sure, Reyner Banham's revolutionary portrait of L.A., which I'd picked up in a Westwood bookstore. It had a very strong influence on my sense of what was already becoming my favorite American city.

One day--I think before Max and I went up to San Francisco--Gloria offered us a tour of parts of L.A. We stopped at the UCLA campus:

. . . and either then or the next day went Downtown. Our first stop on that occasion was the bustling Grand Central Market (but no photos); the second was the 1893 Bradbury Building, famed not only as an astonishing piece of architecture in itself but as a location in a great many films, including Blade Runner:

We also visited the Music Center, where I took a photo of the Mark Taper Forum and the Jacques Lipchitz sculpture "Peace on Earth," and we had drinks at the then-new and very controversial postmodern Bonaventure Hotel:

One of my best L.A. memories while Max was still in town was of the Malibu jazz club we drove up to one night, and the grunion run happening right off the club's pier. Again I have no photos--but ask me for a description of the evening. I did have my camera ready for Disneyland, where Max and I spent a day. Here's Main Street as it looked then:

My strongest memories of that visit are of the best and worst rides we went on: Space Mountain (two times), and Small World (which someone at Gloria's said we 'just had to' experience, but it turned out to be an experience of being trapped while passing through room after room of stupid dolls with the world's worst earworm, "It's a small world after all," repeating endlessly though loudspeakers). Looking over my slides, I see that we also took the Jungle Cruise and maybe had lunch in Adventureland as well:

For some reason I took this photo of a carousel, presumably in Fantasyland:

We also rode the cable gondolas that used to cross parts of the park and went through the Matterhorn:

Here are some photos I took from the "Skyway":

A day or two later we were driving up the California coast. We stopped for the night in Morro Bay, where we camped (and went to a movie, Big Wednesday, appropriately a surfing epic). But I can't identify the specific locations of the photos that I took along the drive. The first ones below look like they could be the stretch of coast not far beyond the residences of the Malibu district, or farther north near San Simeon; the last ones are probably along Big Sur, much farther north. Here they are in order (maybe someone could identify some places for me):

The shots I like best are the ones that have glimpses of the highway snaking along above the shore. After Big Sur we stopped in Monterey, at least long enough to take a look at the famous Fisherman's Wharf; I don't recall our hunting out Steinbeck locales:

While in the Bay Area we stayed at the apartment or condo complex of Max's aunt and his cousin Mark. in Mountain View, well before it became a hub of Silicon Valley. Again we were very warmly received and had a great time visiting (ask me for details), and again I regret that I took no photos of people. We drove up to San Francisco at least a couple of times, once with Mark and his mother. (Were they with us when we saw Max Roach in a North Beach jazz club?) The few photos I took of the city supplement the few I took on a previous visit in 1975 (see BOXES 99-100). Here they are, starting with views of Alcatraz and of the Marin Peninsula across the Bay:

It's easy enough to identify the Transamerica Pyramid and the Sentinel Building . . .

. . . but someone who knows the city better will have to tell me what street we're on in the next photo:

We climbed Coit Tower, from which location I have a couple of shots, one looking toward the Golden Gate Bridge:

. . . and one looking more to the west, toward Russian Hill, with the spires of the Saints Peter and Paul Church in the left foreground:

Closer to ground level I took this shot of Lombard Street, before or after driving down it (it was great fun driving around San Francisco):

Continuing our series of visits to Frank Lloyd Wright locations we stopped at the 1948 Morris Gift Shop, which foreshadows his Guggenheim Museum with its curved ramp leading to an upper level:

Our next stop was the Golden Gate Bridge, where Max seems to have caught me wincing at the spray from a wave.

I also took two pictures of a coastal rock that looks somewhat like Seal Rock farther south, but I think it may be along a stretch called Land's End. If there are sea lions on the rock, I can't make them out.

Possibly we went to the Legion of Honor Museum at Land's End--like the Golden Gate Bridge, it plays a role in Vertigo--but I didn't photograph it. My next picture is of the Oakland Bay Bridge, taken from the revolving restaurant of the recently opened Hyatt Regency (which also had a much admired and imitated gigantic atrium with Things to Come elevators). That's the Ferry Building tower on the left.

I don't recall eating at the revolving restaurant--that may have been the night we went to a fantastic North Beach Italian restaurant. Anyhow, a day or two later we were back in S.F. Here's another location I can't identify, though the architecture is vintage San Francisco:

We went to another site that figures in Vertigo, the Palace of Fine Arts--left over from a 1915 exposition:

I now have no idea why I took that photo of the shopping carts lying in the lagoon--whether I was outraged by the city's neglect or liked the geometric pattern. In any case,

the only other S.F. photo I have from the trip is of a seagull with the skyline behind it--I couldn't say from what vantage point it was taken. As we'd planned from the start of the trip, I dropped Max off at the San Francisco Airport to fly back east, after which I returned to Santa Monica to spend more time with Gloria and her family and to see much more of Los Angeles, before driving back on my own to Sheboygan. I'll report on L.A. and the highlights of my return drive in my next post.