Last week with friends Valerie, Cheryl, and Wendy, I went on a two-day road trip in search for New Zealand orange chocolate chip ice cream. This quest was to mark the closing of my studio 2see that ran for a year with the help of Valerie, Cheryl, and my husband Bob.
Why one would travel a thousand miles for this ice cream is debatable only to those who haven’t been in New Zealand and participated in the after dinner tradition. Those of us who had traveled with Scottsdale Community Colleges International Education exchange program, Connecting Communities and Sharing Cultures immersion trip, understood this and have been craving this ice cream since our last trip in 2006. Cheryl found the only place in the country that had New Zealand Natural ice cream was a store in Los Angeles.
So I said I was in if we could see the ocean, and visit 2 or 3 museums along the way. This way I could begin to see what LA had show and I could get an ocean fix. The first day stopping in La Jolla was amazing to feel the moisture and smell of the salt in the ocean breeze. We stopped at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. It was a beautiful museum and the views were great. Unfortunately the exhibit I was hoping to see was at the main museum in San Diego and they were closed for renovation.
The next day we were up and headed into LA and on to the Getty Museum. I wasn’t prepared for this. It was the best museum I have ever been to. I felt like I could stay there for a day or more and not be bored. Normally I like museums but I have a short attention span, I look at the images, ponder over a few that catch my eye, read a bit and look for a materials that I can read over later. The Getty has fabulous sculpture gardens, fountains and café type places to eat and read books and brochures, events for all ages, and the architecture is such that there is many buildings that house different subject matter so that you can wander from building to building or floor to floor looking at the diverse art they present there. The whole experience is a journey. The grounds and buildings are designed for your experience and immersion into the world of art. I can’t wait until my next trip to LA where I will plan for a whole day at The Getty.
Almost as impressive was the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, seeing A Thousand Polaroid’s by Philip-Lorca diCorcia. I was frustrated by the signage at LACMA wanting to know more about the specifics of production of the Philip-Lorca’s large prints that were part of the show. They also had an interesting interview with him that was unavailable for sale that would have been beneficial to hear more than once.
To the end of the trip, unfortunately after all of our wanderings and planning to bring back orange chocolate chip ice cream for all, after a few misguided turns along the way we finally made it to New Zealand Natural ice cream store. The sign on the door said Closed For Remodeling, open again on Thursday. Didn’t they know we had traveled for two days so that this could be the culmination of our journey? Why didn’t their voice recording warn us about this unseasonable closing?
Even without us reaching our ice cream goal we had a great time, saw the ocean, and lots of great art, and since we didn’t get our orange chocolate chip ice cream we will have to plan another trip to complete our quest.