We Actually Went Somewhere Yesterday

First off, my mom wants to know what a southern enchilada is. I'm not sure exactly how they are made and I've tried to find a recipe online but the closest I've found is a smothered enchilada which involves cream of chicken soup and isn't quite what I was looking for. It is basically seasoned (with what I don't know) ground beef rolled up in a corn tortilla and then covered with lots and lots of melted cheese. It doesn't have any of the usual enchilada sauce involved and is a little spicy but not too much. I just know that the ones I've had at J's Place have always been very tasty.

Now, on to getting out of the house yesterday. Keith actually had the day off, having gotten in about 11pm the night before and not scheduled to go out again until today, so he suggested going up to Fresno to the zoo, but since it was supposed to be about 105 in Fresno (and here) yesterday I didn't think the zoo would be such a great idea. We have been up there when it was in the 90s and it wasn't too bad, the zoo has lots of trees and shade but I think it would have been just a little too hot for such an outing.

Then he suggested the Bakersfield Museum of Art, a place that we have never been for some unknown reason. It's located downtown by the Mill Creek park and has a big outdoor area where they do parties and weddings and such. I looked online to see what kind of exhibits they were having for the summer and it looked interesting and only costs $5.00 to get in. Then after the museum we could hit a couple of the antique stores that are just down the street and then go get some lunch before going home.

The museum was having summer art camp for kids so the classroom areas down a long hallway were full of kids looking like they were having a good time. The actual exhibit areas were very quiet, kid voices not carrying that far. It's not a real big museum, with three exhibit halls that were open. The first was a group of three California artists that had paintings and photographs of the central valley area. The first artist is one that was born in Korea in 1952, Suong Yanchareon, who doesn't have a website but does landscape type paintings of streets and buildings, like the Taft Hardware building in you guessed it, Taft. I really liked his work and would have liked to see more. The second artist had outdoor type landscapes of Bakersfield and the surrounding area, her paintings were on a very small scale. My favorite was this very suburban house.

Her name is Mary Austin-Klein and she does have a website.

The last artist in this group was a photographer, Sam Comen, who had photos taken in the little town of Lost Hills, a farm and oil worker type town.

We also saw an exhibit called River Mountain Sea, paintings by David Ligare, so realistic you felt like you were right there. They were of the Monterey County area, featuring lots of smaller paintings and three very large ones. Very peaceful and calming to look at.

We did go to two antique stores afterwards and then stopped for chinese at The Rice Bowl, so it was a nice outing and something a little different to do.