travels with toby

It’s that time of year for the photographic review. It was another interesting year full of fun things and some not very fun things. We visited many places as we continue to explore our new digs in Los Angeles.

The year started off not so nicely as we were glued to the news about the wildfires that started the first week of January, and there were several. Because it was so dry, sparks can easily turn into flames with the Santa Ana winds. And those winds were ferocious! They were so strong that not only fires erupted but there were many shingles laying in our driveway. Our roof was replaced shortly after that.

I took some photos of the smoke from the Palisades fire as it was easily seen in the valley where I live just over the hill, though the Palisades are about 25 miles away. There were some people evacuated on the southern end of the valley and we were very close to an evacuation zone on the other end from a different fire that might have been evacuated. Our friends up the hill were in that zone but luckily, they didn’t have to evacuate. A bit of a scary time.

I did many hikes in 2025 but I didn’t blog about them so this gallery contains some of the photos from various hikes throughout the year.

My friend and I did a few bird walks this year, two at the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve and one at O’Melveny Park where my daughter joined us in May. It’s hard to take photos of the birds we saw since they’re usually small and far away but I did get one of some geese and their babies. In November we saw many pelicans and they were in abundance so it was easy to capture them.

I took many photos of flowers throughout the year and created a blog post of many of them in the spring. Below are some favorites.

In February my friend invited me to see a tribute to Steven Sondheim called “Old Friends” at the Music Center in downtown Los Angeles. Fun show! Bernadette Peters was fabulous. And there’s City Hall!

In March we visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, or LACMA, and the Los Angeles Arboretum. We both had been to LACMA before but it’s been years so it was nice to see it again. We had never been the the L.A. Arboretum and what a nice place that was! Feel free to check out more details from the links to my blog posts. Here’s a snapshot of what we saw at both of these places:

In April and May we saw the Great Wall of Los Angeles. The Great Wall is a half mile mural representing the history of ethnic peoples of California from prehistoric times to the 1950s. In 2013 SPARC, Social and Public Art Resource Center, received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to continue the work on the Great Wall to add the remaining four decades of the century, the 1960s thru the 1990s. We also visited the L.A. Zoo and Botanical Gardens and saw all kinds of wildlife. Again, feel free to check out my blog posts for more details. Here are a handful of photos from those outings:

In May we toured the Nethercutt car museum. While there we learned that there is another building across the street that has more cars but also musical instruments. We were intrigued by that so made a reservation for that guided tour in November. If you’re so inclined, you can read more details on both of my blog posts.

First some scenes from our initial visit:

Next, a glimpse into the guided tour:

Our daughter came for a visit to help me celebrate my birthday in May. We had a mother/daughter outing at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and had a fun day. We also went to the L.A. County Fair with friends and enjoyed that too. For my birthday dinner I chose King’s Fish House in Calabasas and it was great!

In June we attended a No Kings protest against the current federal administration. It was my first protest. We attended another No Kings protest in October that I blogged about. It’s important to make your voice heard and we have a right to protest. Both days were full of people and joy and laughter, even during this very serious moment in our country’s history.

We spent a day at Rincon Beach with our friends in July. They also helped my husband celebrate his birthday a few days later.

We went to the The Huntington Library, Art Museum & Botanical Gardens to see the corpse flower. I had never seen one open before as they only stay open for less than 24 hours. There are more details at the link to my post but we went twice that week just to see the corpse flower open and I’m so glad we did!

My good friend from high school was here in August and together with her husband we went to Descanso Gardens. Apparently August is not the best month to go to Descanso if you’re interested in seeing flowers. I’ll have to go back in the spring for that. We enjoyed what we did see and had a lovely lunch at their new restaurant.

In the fall we toured the Oakridge Estate, Barbara Stanwyck’s house that then became Jack Oakie’s house. Jack Oakie named it the Oakridge Estate. It was previously Marwyck Ranch so named for Barbara and Zeppo Marx. Zeppo also had a home on the property which is now a Chevrolet Dealer. You can see both houses in a photo in the gallery below. It’s about 5 minutes from home. It’s not open to the public but a few times a year they offer tours. It was fun to see photos from the early days of the San Fernando Valley and to learn more of its history. While looking up some of the photos below I happened upon a Photo Essay if you’d like to check out more of this history. I also included a link to the Oakridge Estate’s site for more information.

Of course hubby carved his four pumpkins for Halloween.

In November we learned that the renovations to the Norton Simon museum were complete so we spent a lovely afternoon there.

December brought our daughter for a visit during Christmas. We took her to Olvera Street and checked out the wares. We enjoyed lunch at Chiguacle then walked across the street to Union Station. There are a lot of historical markers and it was such interesting history. My daughter and I also had a fun shopping day beginning with the Studio City farmers market.

We went to our first jazz concert at Sam First near the airport. My cousin was playing the harp with other fabulous musicians and we had a lovely evening. We also met my cousin and her husband for lunch after our daughter arrived so that they could all meet. I’ll close this gallery with the handful of photos that I took for the holidays.

I continued my joy of reading in 2025 and similar to last year below is a list of the books I read with a rating, 5 being the best. I didn’t read as much in 2025 as part of the year was spent looking for a part time job.

The Things We Do for Love, 5
Faith, 4
On Writing, 5
The Women, 5
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, 5
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, 5
Not My Type, 5
Daughters of Shandong, 5
All the Light We Cannot See, 4
The Frozen River, 5
Parar – Para Vivir Mejor, 4
The Lion Women of Tehran, 5
A Girl Called Samson, 5
The Last Letter from Your Lover, 5
From Sand and Ash, 5

I keep track of the books that I read as well as the books that I want to read on Goodreads. This year they sent an image of most of the books that I read. There are a few missing but it’s a nice photo so I will share it here.

Overall it was a good year but I’m hoping that 2026 brings change to the way things are going in the U.S. I don’t want to get into it much here but, well, it’s been an awful year in terms of our democracy. Here’s hoping for better things in 2026.

Happy New Year!!