Thursday, June 20, 2019

The History of the OC: All that I never thought I would need to learn

One of my maps was converted to a wallpaper vinyl.


I like a little research with my art.

So, thanks to this latest installment, I got my fill of Orange County culture and history. Let's see what I have learned.
    Some details:
    • The last Californian grizzly bear was hunted down and killed in the Santa Ana Mountains in 1908. The rancher/beekeeper responsible was nicknamed Holy Jim because he had a way with curse words. Now there's a hiking trail named after him.  


    • With my in-house surfing aficionado, I have all of the surf spots along the south coast.

    • Mission San Juan Capistrano has some pretty beautiful ruins. There's an annual migration of swallows that come from Argentina to nest at and near the mission. Supposedly because the friar invited them after a local store owner was swatted the birds away.
    • I have no stats, but I really wonder how many car accidents the nightly fireworks at Disney cause on the 5 freeway.
    • The Santa Ana Zoo has have at least 50 monkeys or they lose their funding. 
    • There's a huge wooden blimp hangar from WW2, one of the largest wooden structures in the world in Tustin. No one can access it, and it's not in use because the US Marine Corp has it tied up in a bureaucratic dead end.
    •  Similarly, the OC has one of the largest helium balloons in the world, also tied up in bureaucratic controversy. The former Marine base was slated to be a huge community development including multiple stadiums, 5k of housing, museums, even a man-made canyon and wildlife corridor, but claims of embezzling, cronyism, and mismanagement of public dollars has left the whole project at a dead end.

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