The following images are a snapshot of my weekend. What a memorable birthday.

On our way to seeing our kids, we detoured to meet up with old Tahoan friends, Kae and Sue. Both have moved from the Sierra with Kae settling in Chico and Sue being conveniently located in Santa Rosa. It was a brief reconnect and long overdue.
My daughters-in-law make everything from scratch. Aren't these doughnuts delightful?
With Spring fully upon us, a stroll through nature was a must!


We all share a love of Estate Sales and there were several occurring conveniently on my actual birthday. I did not buy this typewriter but other treasures came home with me.
What fun to have an opportunity to meet up with some Peanuts friends while on a walk around town.

We were where we are most Thursday nights in the Summer... at Lakeview Commons for a really excellent evening of music.

Oh, and we arrived early.

Along with music, there were fun sights to see.

Cyndy and Steve arrived for the headliner- Suika T & Band.

Kae arrived in town in time for most of the concert. It was a little difficult to catch up over the funk, groove, and unique Latin rhythms. ¡Qué bueno!

The second half of my day with Kae was a first for both of us... an explore of the Palm Springs Air Museum.

"Hear the true story of the group of foresighted, concerned, and dedicated individuals who came together and set the stage for the participation of African Americans in the fields of aviation and aeronautics. These prescient men included Chauncey E. Spencer, the presenter’s father."

In 1934, Spencer joined with a group of African American aviators in organizing the National Airmen Association of America (NAAA). Working as a kitchen helper in a Chicago restaurant, Spencer used most of his weekly wages for flying lessons. Later, he and a handful of companions bought an obsolete airplane and set out to repair it themselves. Two years after that, he and fellow NAAA member Dale Lawrence White flew a rented Lincoln-Paige biplane on a ten-city tour that started in Chicago and ended in Washington, DC. The notoriety of the Spencer-White flight in the black press contributed to convincing Congress to include blacks in the pre-World War II Civilian Pilot Training Program.
What a proud son and sharer of history. I knew of the Tuskegee Airmen but I never knew the men that paved their way. Wow.
As anyone who reads this knows, I'm a fan of Walt Disney. Seeing his MOUSE ONE, the Grumman Gulfstream I, even from a distance, made me happy.
Disney bought the aircraft in 1964 and used it for personal and business until he passed away in 1966. It continued to serve the company as an executive, and guest transport, until it was retired in 1991. The plane was on display at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando until 2022 when it was moved to the Palm Springs Air Museum. Decades of humidity in Florida damaged the interior. The Museum is in the process of restoring the entire interior to its original vintage condition. When it's done, I'll be returning.
Disney history is found everywhere!
This was an incredible discovery. Did you know that during World War II, in an effort to disguise the Lockheed Burbank Aircraft Plant (above) and ward off enemy fire, officials at Burbank’s Lockheed Air Terminal (now known as Bob Hope Airport) took the unusual but highly effective step of covering the entire airport with strategically placed camouflage netting? From the air, in the eyes of the enemy, the entire area looked like a rural subdivision (below).




When we asked a volunteer what we should not miss, he pointed us to the Museum's latest and biggest restoration project to date, the F-117A Nighthawk “Black Devil.” One of only 59 built, this stealth fighter logged a total of 5,140 hours of flight (75 of which were in combat, making it the second highest combat time F-117) and was the 49th Wing Commander’s aircraft during Operation Allied Force, a bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War in 1999. The aircraft was also used in Operation Desert Storm, the 1991 military operation to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. It is one of four being given to museums around the country for display. How lucky were we?!

The Palm Springs Air Museum is a nonprofit living history museum dedicated to educating the public about the role Air Power played in preserving American liberties and way of life. The Museum preserves, exhibits, and flies aircraft from World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War and the Global War on Terror. In addition to flyable and static aircraft, the Museum uses permanent and temporary exhibits, related artifacts, artwork, and library sources to perpetuate American History. Another cool component is the fact that many of the docents are veterans and were willing to share their experiences and sacrifices.

Kae and I had one of those Palm Springs days that leaves one with a feeling of contentment and with an eagerness to repeat it all again soon... it was just perfect.

On a glorious 80° Saturday, I returned to my desert Happy Place for a reconnection with my friend, Kae.

David Hockney (July 9, 1937- ) is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. What an introduction to his talents.
Before attending this perspective, I only knew Mr. Hockney because of his swimming pools. Wow. There is so, so much more. 
I knew so little and learned so much. One interesting fact was that he has embraced technological tools from whatever era he was working in: fax machines, Xerox copiers, Polaroid cameras and, most recently, the iPad (drawings that have dominated his output for the past decade). Even his innovative embrace of lithography, an invention that dates back to 1796, feels like a technologically boundary-pushing art form. Without these machines, Hockney wouldn’t have had the capacity to churn out thousands of artworks over his career, helping him become a fixture in just about every institution’s modern art collection.
Walking into this gallery, I was in awe. Autour de la Maison (2019) might be the longest work of art I have ever seen. It is a 40 foot-long panorama created on an iPad which depicts, in detail, the changing seasons on Hockney's farm in Normandy. The representation of the landscape is organized in sequence and unfolds as if you were strolling the property. Very cool.




We also had to the opportunity to meet Celia Birtwell. Known as Hockney's muse and someone whose image has been captured by him often, Celia is a British textile designer and fashion designer, known for her distinctive bold, romantic and feminine designs, which are influenced by Picasso and Matisse, and the classical world. She was well known for her prints which epitomized the 1960s/70s.


I was surprised, too, to find so many connections to Pablo Picasso. Hockney produced this etching for a commemorative publication celebrating the master, when he died in 1973. In this image, a small-scale David Hockney gazes at an oversized bust of Picasso on a pedestal dramatizing the great artist's influence.
Here's Celia again, this time with a very Picasso vibe.
Hockney said of his idol, "The moment you realize what Picasso is doing, how he is using time as well - and that is why you could see round the back and the body as well as the front - once you begin to realize this, it becomes a very profound experience, because you begin to see what he is doing is not a distortion and slowly it then begins to look more and more real. In fact, it is naturalism that begins to look less and less real."

"Hockney’s experiments with photography and collage continue to the present day. He calls these “photographic drawings” and incorporates himself and his friends into Lynchian skewed rooms with impossible dimensions. He uses Photoshop to achieve uncanny compositions in which people, paintings and furniture are digitally composed into one space. Because Hockney minimizes each object’s light and shadows, the photos lose their depth and throw off our innate understanding of how figure-ground relationships work. We lose our sense of the horizon with no understanding of how we’d stand upright in these fictional places."

Blending the disciplines of painting, drawing, printmaking and photography, Hockney, now 87, has maintained an innovative approach to making new work. "Some artists do the same thing all the time", the artist stated in 2015. "It’s okay for some, but not for me. I feel I need variety, and I get it." From his cool and colorful splash paintings of Californian swimming pools to his numerous portraits and self-portraits, and from his Yorkshire landscapes to his photo collages, Hockney has continually revamped his style. I was especially taken with his sunflowers. He also stated, "I draw flowers every day and send them to my friends so they get fresh blooms every morning." What a sweet idea.
I was excited to have an opportunity to play with an iPad to get a little closer to the artist's creativity. What a truly amazing museum outing.