The Automobile Driving Museum

I consider myself a very active person. I embrace everything that Los Angeles has to offer. There is rarely a weekend that I don't attend a local event, visit a museum or go to a live performance. I love perusing Los Angeles Magazine and LA Weekly with a pen, noting everything that I want to do. If anything, living in the city brings an overwhelming amount of choices.

I've spent my thirty-six years living in Los Angeles and I'm still surprised when I discover something new. Dan and I have belonged to our Smart Car club for about a year and half and in this time, we have had some great new discoveries. I feel like the SoCal Smarties are more than just a car club, it's also a community of great people finding new adventures in the City of Angels.

Last Sunday, we met the SoCal Smarties at The Automobile Diving Museum in El Segundo. The Automobile Driving Museum is very unique, as it is the own known museum that allows visitors to ride in classic cars! We met our group just prior to ten and lined up our cars for display in the parking lot.

The museum is free, but is also a non-profit. so make sure to donate! It's worth it! Quite honestly, we were more impressed with The Automobile Driving Museum than we were with the flashier Peterson Automotive Museum. The Automobile Driving Museum is a lot smaller than the Peterson, but the intimacy allows for a superior experience. The docents were great and even though we didn't take a guided tour, they were very accessible for answering questions and pointing out details.

The Automotive Driving Museum allows you to get very close to the cars, giving visitors the ability to admire the interiors and in most cases, all angles of the vehicles. They have quite a large and varied collection.

When we entered the show room, our eyes immediately went to the Hot Wheels vehicles. I was surprised to learn that the pink suffer van (Volkswagen Beach Bomb) has the record for being the most valuable Hot Wheels collectible.

Dan took all of the pictures for this blog post with his new Panasonic Lumix DMC-G5K Camera. He got "artsy" with some of the pictures, but they really turned out great. The cars were easy subjects with colorful, glossy coats and shiny embellishments. The cars of yesteryear are so much more elegant than those currently on the road.

After signing a liability waiver, we were cleared to take a ride in the three classic cars that the museum had out for tours. The cars are different each week and although subject to change, they post the cars in advance on their website. If you are looking for a ride in a particular vehicle, I would recommend calling up the museum. It's run by a great group of people!

Alan, gave us rides in a 1948 Studebaker Starlight Coupe and in a 1946 Packard Clipper. He was a wonderful guide, giving us plenty of information on both cars, including pointing out various features. I was amazing at all of the leg and headroom, especially in the Packard. This was my first time riding in a car that was older than the 1960's. I felt like I was a movie star in a period movie. The classic car ride is a very special experience that The Automobile Driving Museum offers.

Our guide Alan. We even gave him a ride in our electric Smart!

This beautiful cherry-red Chevy Bel Air was parked right in front of the museum. Talk about making a statement!

You definitely should plan a trip to The Automobile Driving Museum. It's a local gem. Click on the link below to check out their official website!

The Automobile Driving Museum

UK August-October 2013- Drumlanrig Castle

Scotland has amazing castles. Castles that look like they hopped off of a reel of Disney movie. Our first Scottish castle was another " Lucky Find".

We were driving to Lock Lomond and decided to jump off of the highway when we saw a Historical marker. The route to Drumlanrig Castle took us far out of our way and into the deep woods. Really, we had no idea what we would find when we finally reached our destination.

Suddenly. in the middle of the forest, we came across a long, red dirt driveway. Drumlanrig Castle was beginning to look promising!

I immediately felt like I was in a Jane Austen novel.

Unfortunately, we had just missed the summer season and the interiors of the castle were closed. We were able to pay six pounds each to explore the grounds, which included several gardens.

It was a quiet morning and aside from a team of gardeners, we were practically the only visitors on the property.

Construction began on the castle in 1679 and its distinctive pink coloring comes from pink sandstone. It was built by the First Duke of Queensberry and is the ancestoral home of the Douglas family.

We walked around the enormous castle and took pictures.

The first garden was really pretty.

But the second garden was the real stunner.

Hopefully one day we will be able to return and see the interiors of the castle. Click on the link below for Drumlanrig Castle's official site to find out opening times and ticket information. It's a beautiful castle and not to be missed.

Drumlanrig Castle Official Web site

UK August-October 2013- Lockerbie Memorial

We left our hotel in England's Lake District early in the morning. The atmosphere was thick with fog as we started to make our way towards Scotland.

Our drive took us right through the town of Lockerbie, Scotland. I knew that Lockerbie was famous for a plane crash, but it happened when I was ten years old and I didn't remember the specifics.

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 crashed in the town of Lockerbie when a terrorist planted bomb exploded on the plane. Two hundred and seventy people died, included eleven on the ground in the town. In addition to the fatalities, Lockerbie sustained a lot of damage, including a huge crater in the town. It still remains both the UK's deadliest air disaster and terrorism incident.

We had not planned on stopping in Lockerbie, but when we realized that we were driving through it, we decided to pull off to see if we could find a memorial. As soon as we exited the freeway, we saw signs leading us to the memorial that was located inside of Dryfesdale Cemetery.

We visited on a quiet Monday morning, where we were among only a few visitors. The cemetery is beautiful and old, with many of the markers indicating war service.

The Lockerbie Air Disaster Memorial is located in the center of the cemetery, surrounded by colorful flowers. The flowers in the memorial were the only splash of color in an otherwise, very grey cemetery. We walked around and took a moment to reflect at each grave or memorial marker. A sobering realization was that many of the people who were killed were younger than us. There was a group of thirty-five college students from Syracuse University returning home to New York.

After a somber morning in the cemetery, we continued on the road towards our evening stop in Loch Lomond. In the countryside we saw something unusual, ginger sheep! We saw a lot of sheep on our UK trip, but this was the only time that we saw ginger ones.

And clearly, the saw us too!