Melinda Downing Design

christmas in southern california

Winter color in Southern California this Christmas, with an afternoon high of 81.

Hollywood, Los Angeles and Beverly Hills

montana de oro

Six miles southwest of Morro Bay, this state park features rugged cliffs, secluded sandy beaches, coastal plains, streams, canyons, and hills, including 1,347-foot Valencia Peak. I hiked there yesterday with 3 friends I have known since 6th grade. I have been to Morro Bay, SLO and the area a hundred times and I've never been to this stretch of the ocean. Unbelievably beautiful but not for the faint of heart. My fear of heights kept me a little further away from the edge than my friends and seeing a long slithering snake on the trail did not help matters. The Flowers were mostly crunchy and dying but the colors ranged from bright to muted and were beautiful. I want to return in the spring.

 

64

To celebrate my husband Michael's 64th birthday, we left the foggy valley we live in and drove into the sunshine of Southern California. First Stop Conan. It was a seamless operation, we checked in at Warner Brothers, got a hand stamp, tickets, boarding card and wristband and were told to return in 2 hours. We had a leisurely lunch then headed back to the taping. We were seated in the 2nd row, about 4 feet from Andy Richter's podium. Sean Lennon's band "The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger" closed the show, and.... he waved at me after the show. This was especially cool because many years ago Michael saw John Lennon and Sean getting into a limo at SFO airport. As they were pulling away, John turned around and waved at Michael. No cameras allowed on the lot so no Conan photos. The next day we window shopped on Rodeo drive in Beverly Hills, ate at cafe M, then visited the Getty Museum.

 

key west, belize, honduras, mexico, tampa

 

 

 

 

early fall in new england

Bar Harbor, visitng with family, wedding, antique stores and barns full of junk. Oh and Dunkin Donuts.

creepy dolls

Nothing like creepy dolls to get you in the mood for Halloween. I found these in an antique toy store in Lyon France. We walked by each day and peeked in the window and the shop was closed. We wrote down the address and asked the hotel concierge to check into it. She called the owner, who was on holiday and he offered to come in the next day and open up for us. Who says the French are rude? This guy opened his store for an hour just for us. I wanted the uber creepy doll sooooo bad, but it was several hundred euros, we did get some super cool tarot cards from the early 1800's and my friend bought a marrionette head that she named George.

my friend Karin and the shop owner.

hannahs birthday at erna's elderberry house restuarant

Hannah was my client before she became one of my closest friends. She was my first concierge photography client. Basically she hired me to document her families life on a very personal level. The obvious like birthday parties and holiday celebrations, to photographing her newborn daughter in the hospital when she was born two months premature, to hanging out at the house capturing the ordinary moments. Hannah does lots of custom greeting cards but our main focus is to gather images so that at the end of each year, I can design a custom coffee table book. This is her gift to her children. She is a great mom. For her birthday this month she treated a group of friends to dinner at Erna's Elderberry House. This place is fabulous, it seriously felt like we were having dinner in Europe. It's in the mountains about a hour from where I live and it was a night I will never forget, the 7 course dinner lasted over 4 hours.

 

 

24hrs in san francisco

taking a break from cabin building and the business of designing christmas cards and filling holiday orders, Michael and I went to San Francisco to see the Richard Avedon exhibit at the MOMA. we drove to Dublin then took BART in avoiding some traffic stress and a $50 parking fee at the hotel.

dinner at Bucca Di Beppo, at the bar so we did not have to wait an hour for a table. The lemoncello Martinis are fabulous and the pasta is the best.

MOMA at night.

we stumbled upon this alley full of sculptures.

passed a church on our way to the blue bottle for coffee.

 waiting for the Museum to open. 

I like watching people look at art.

where's waldo?

 

Prague

My amazing friend Karin, took me with her to Prague on a business trip. I tried really, really hard to be the very best traveling companion ever, as these are yearly jaunts she goes on all over the world. Seriously though.... I was blessed to have such a great opportunity and Karin was a warrior traveler. We walked over 60 miles in 7 days and ate and drank our way all over this city and I was thrilled to learn she loves to take photos as much as I do.

Looking at the city from Prague Castle

Near the castle, early evening after the crowds cleared. The opening scene from Immortal Beloved (one of my favorite movies of all time) was filmed just behind where I stood here to take this photo. Most of the story takes place in Austria but was filmed almost entirely in the Czech Republic.

 


beautiful details everywhere


my obsession with mannequins continues....


plenty of creepy dolls at the toy museum and one whole floor of Barbies.

The National Museum was incredible, we spent a whole day here, looking at all you would expect from a Natural History museum and so much more, like the room with fetuses, two headed skeletons, small pox virus in a jar, medieval birthing apparatus, and footage playing on a TV screen of a woman giving birth to Elvis singing In the Ghetto. fun!

Cesky Krumlov- a 3 hr bus ride from Prague- This is the view from the Castle. They have kept bears in the moat since the 1600's. The bears have a lot of space but it still seemed a little off to me. Especially since there are lots of bear rugs in the castle, the obvious ancestors of the current ones in the moat.
Other than that... I loved this town, over all prices were much better than Prague and as you can see from the photo it is a beautiful town with a river winding through it, you can canoe here - something we did not have time for on our one day trip here. We had many choices for a day trip and I'm glad we picked this one. Rick Steves comes through again.

We visited many, many antique stores, old marionettes were plentiful but out of my price range. While visiting Cesky Krumlov, one of the most wonderful medieval cities in Central Europe, I found a box of old heads and bought a few to bring home. I LOVE them.

here they are in my backyard.

Here is where we had our best meal. THANK YOU to my sister-in-law Daphne who sent me $50 before I left and said she wanted me to have a nice meal on her. This was one of those places we stumbled upon, just walking through neighborhoods, away from the main tourist areas. It was run by a lovely Italian couple and we spent 3 hours here, working our way through appetizers, yummy pastas, red wine, desert and limoncellos. It's called Alla Stella Nera and if you ever find yourself in Prague, I highly recommend dinner here. Be sure and order the chocolate mouse.

rocky point

Visiting friends in Rocky Point (Puerto Penasco, Mexico) over New Years, this is the view from their balcony. It was a 12 hour drive each way from California, but worth every mile. The best tortillas I've ever had, amazing sunshine and the meeting of the desert and the ocean was something more spectacular that I had imagined.

 

Here is Otis. Otis may have a condo on the beach but he has known great hardship.... not too long ago he met up with a rattlesnake in his backyard in Arizona and lost an eye.

 

His companion, Raider is more wolf than dog and gets a lot of attention when walking on the beach. He can look pretty scary at times but is really a gentle spirit and quite beautiful.

New Years Eve was a party on the beach complete with bonfires. Here is Michael with his buddy, Tim.