Upon discovering what we know today as San Diego, explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo deemed it “a very good enclosed port.” The same spirit of discovery gripped my 3-year-old son on his first visit to the area some 460 years later.
Sometimes you need a place to go where you can hide out for the weekend and do as little as possible.
April and I were in need of that with the impending arrival of our fourth child. So, with the kids safely deposited in the care of my mother-in-law, we headed for Summerland one Friday night. In little more than an hour, we found ourselves in the perfect place - the Inn on Summer Hill.
Huddled in the pre-dawn chill just outside the Coliseum in south Los Angeles, everyone is a little anxious. Echoing booms pierce the sky overhead and there is a collective twitch in the crowd.
It’s New Year’s Eve in Santa Clarita and the sun has nearly completed its descent into the sea west of Ventura. Streetlights blink on across town and, as if on cue, cell phones start sounding off.
“Are you dressed yet?”
“Is the champagne on ice?”
The worldwide party that is New Year’s Eve is about to visit the west coast and SCV residents are making their final plans.
Late summer is the season for absorbing some culture. School’s out and the offspring have parked their brains in neutral for a couple months. It’s time to jumpstart those idle neurons for the coming school year. Take the kids to a museum or two and expose them to the wide array of humankind’s artistic achievement, if you can drag them away from the Xbox for long enough. It’s time they learned that the human soul searched for meaning long before virtual avatars inhabited 22-level electronic dungeons or virtual cities where stealing a car and assaulting innocent victims earns a more powerful engine and a resounding cheer from a gallery of thieves.
Finally, there is a place where racing enthusiasts can trade their work attire for a racing helmet and fulfill their insatiable need for speed. MB2 Raceway is an exciting, challenging and professionally-designed venue located in the new Cascades Business park just off the Interstate 5. Geared up yet? There’s more, race fans. MB2 is the only one-of-its-kind indoor racing complex in the Los Angeles county and the state-of-the-art facility spans over 60,000 square feet. The raceway features emission-free Italian electric race karts which reach speeds up to 50 miles per hour and are safe as well as adrenaline inducing.
So, what did you do last weekend? Dinner and a movie? How original. Who wouldn’t enjoy a good movie: pay your $10, fasten your shoes to the sticky floor, breathe in the odor of stale popcorn and enjoy the furious clicking of teenage text messaging. Then sit back and suffer through 90 minutes of overpaid celebrities demonstrating their acting prowess honed via paparazzi-documented tantrums at Hollywood hotspots. Sounds good. Movies are easy and predictable. But spending a valuable night out to see a film that will hit cable in about 40 milliseconds is hardly a good use of your precious leisure time.
In a valley where sports, shopping and small businesses prevail, there is a monthly event in our local community that is causing quite the buzz. Third Friday concerts have surprised the residents of Santa Clarita with their success, but have been a long-awaited solution for the increasing number of musically-gifted local youth. Guitarist front-man for artists such as Avril Lavigne, Kelly Osbourne and Ashley Parker Angel, the talented Devin Bronson was a musical pioneer as he grew up in the Santa Clarita Valley.
It’s springtime again when windows are raised and gentle breezes bring the fragrance of her blooms to beckon us outdoors. And no bloom beckons us like the Queen of Flowers - the rose. On April 29, the Santa Clarita Valley Rose Society kicks off the spring season with tours of two private rose gardens at members’ homes, followed by other exciting events throughout the year.
Love. We all want it. More addictive than illegal narcotics and tougher to find, love is the most intense emotion. From the roller coaster ride of a budding romance to the favorite-jeans feel of a long-established relationship, love has led to wars, dethroned kings and inspired poems. Without love our world would be as gray as cloudy winter's day. Love confounds us. We celebrate Saint Valentine's Day, but scholars aren't sure which Saint Valentine prompted the holiday. The origins are shrouded in mystery like love itself; we can't describe how to create love any more than we can explain how to dream. For something everyone has experienced love is awfully puzzling.
Perhaps the best way to describe the Boys & Girls Club's Festival of Trees is to say that spending time there is like spending time inside your favorite Christmas card. And it's accurate to say that the families who have made the festival such an endearing part of their winter celebration don't just come to sample a taste of the holidays. They come to feast. They come for a holiday immersion and that's precisely what they get. First, the eyes are overwhelmed; more than 100 trees are on display, all meticulously decorated by some of the area's most inspired and creative artists. There are wreaths and table displays, and many of the trees themselves are fashioned as part of a vignette - a unique theme bound only by the imagination of the artist.
Every life is its own incredible story. Those words form the motto of veteran entertainment industry producer Brad Sevy's latest project known as Wonderful Lives Productions. But those words are more than a motto. They are, in a sense, the reason behind what Sevy does. They have become the recipe for the magic he creates. The ingredients, on the other hand, are regular folks like you.
Ever marveled at the handiwork of the street painters? With little more than a handful of colored chalk, a model picture and a good pair of kneepads, they can turn a patch of ordinary asphalt into a stunning work of art. In a matter of hours, these street virtuosos can take the very ground you walk on and drive over, and transform it into a platform for something beautiful. Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Chagall. Picasso, Monet and Matisse. Rivera and Renoir and Michelangelo.
Boo! What kid, or adult for that matter, wouldn't enjoy experiencing a classic Halloween night out a whole 10 days before the actual calendared event? This year, the volunteers who make up the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society will host Heritage Haunt on Saturday, October 21. Held at Heritage Junction, located on San Fernando Road in Newhall, the event will run from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. For guests 6 years and older, the historic Pardee House will become a place of giggles and screams; the old Santa Clarita home will evolve into a haunted house for anyone who dares enter.
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