Monday, July 28, 2014

JULY RECAP

July 4, Independence Day. We had the day off (meaning the library was closed, but it was our P-day anyway), so we got up early to go downtown to celebrate the Fourth of July at the site of Fort Moore, on the top of Hill Street, overlooking the historic El Pueblo de Los Angeles. This is where the Mormon Battalion, along with units of other American military forces, on July 4, 1848, raised the first American Flag in Los Angeles. The Mormon Battalion re-enactors were there to do the job. We had flags flying, muskets firing, cannons roaring, troops marching, and politicians orating.
The bas relief monument
A re-enactor
The musketeers
We went to Santee Alley, the famous discount and slightly seedy Los Angeles shopping district near downtown. Max bought a new tie and Mary bought a small rug.

Venice canals
Our next P-day adventure was going to Marina Del Rey, where we have rented three apartments for our children when then come to visit us in December. We walked on the beach and also walked around the nearby Venice canals, a neighborhood of nice homes where the streets, as in Venice, Italy, are canals.

A home on the canal























The following week we wanted to see one of the many waterfalls in the mountains close-by. We decided to see Sturtevant Falls in the Santa Anita Canyon of the Angeles National Forest. That is in the San Gabriel mountains, below Mount Wilson. The hike began at a Forest Service station and went down into a canyon, along a stream, and near a large number of historical cabins, built between 1910 and 1935, that are still used by their owners for recreation and relaxation. We met a string of pack burros as we walked in and later learned that the owners use them to haul in supplies and haul out garbage. There is no road there. It was a pleasant three and a half-mile round-trip hike, uphill both ways. They say the falls are lovely, but with the drought this year, it was barely a trickle. Still, it was worth the trip.

One of the cabins on the trail


What we saw
The falls on a normal year
Last Friday we went to Palisades Park in Santa Monica. It is a long, narrow park at the top of the bluff overlooking the beach and ocean. We brought a pizza for lunch and enjoyed the view and the quiet time together.

We spend a lot of time in the library, teaching, helping people get into the family tree and answering various other genealogy questions they might have.  A Samoan man was so thrilled to see his family members that he had tears in his eyes.  His wife said she wants to do the work for her mother, but will find out more information about her grand-parents so she can do them too.  Mary helped a young black man whose great-grandfather emigrated from Africa;  he was able to find the date he emigrated on the Census, then the ship he came on and his name listed on the ship manifest.  Max teaches photos and stories and how to attach sources to individuals on Family Tree.  Mary teaches beginning computers to those who need it.  She spends a lot of time working on the daily schedule for the workers in the library.  Today, even though it is Sunday, we went to the library for the British Society and in the evening went to a "Why I Believe" fireside at the Visitor's Center featuring McLean Nielsen, the producer of the movie, "The Saratov Approach" (He was also one of the actors). 

Love to everyone.  Elder and Sister Evans