Christo's Umbrellas

Friday October 25, 1991

Up early. Shirley & Jim Turner pick us up at 8 a.m. We have a great breakfast at Eggs & Things and head for Gorman to see Christo's Umbrellas. Nice to ride and Jim to drive. The umbrellas are wonderful. There are 1770 of them everywhere, all over the hills, valleys, ponds, and mountains. We drive to the bottom of the grapevine, stopping often.

We stop to visit Fort Tejon. It is really an old fort and a national park now. So nice we had the time to finally stop after all these years. Jim knows the area really well so takes us on many side roads going home. It's very interesting.

We have a late lunch at Magic Mountain Marie Callendar's. We arrive home at 4:00. I'm tired but OK, ready to lay on my back to rest my straining incision.

Christo is well-known for his strange artwork that is set up outside. The yellow umbrellas that were set up along Interstate 5 through Southern California known as The Grapevine, were set up for 18 days simultaneously with blue umbrellas that were set up in Japan. Fort Tejon is at the summit of the grapevine, and even though I have passed by it dozens of times, I am always traveling between northern and southern California, so have never stopped there.

After I moved to Sonoma County in 1974 Mom and Frank visited during Christo's exhibit along the coastal hills here called "Christo's Fence", pictured below, in 1976. We actually went up with a pilot in a small plane to fly over the fence all the way to the Pacific Ocean.