Behind the Orange Curtain
 

Having just returned after twenty years in the wild Southwest, I am eager to check out any surviving weirdness in Orange County (CA) any suggestions?

I was glad to see that Garden Grove still has it's Stanley Ranch Museum and that the Santa Ana Zoo yet lives . . . also have to check out the Nixon Library as I was there for the opening as a young woman (lost a bet) and was so overwhelmed with the desire to kill some of the other attendees I don't remember a thing about it.

If only the Japanese Deer park was still here . . . ;)

Santa Ana's arts district has a decent amount of cool culture to offer. This is something we mean to do more often.

http://www.santaanaartwalk.com/
http://www.santiagoartdistrict.com/

There are some great restaurants in downtown SA too.

Bowers still exists - as does the Newport Harbor Art Museum - only now it's called OCMA (Orange County Museum of Art). There are always the beaches, the tide pools of Laguna, Balboa Ferry and such - I think there still might even be a short stretch of undeveloped beach around Crystal Cove. South Coast Plaza still exists, but it's transformed quite a bit - some good people watching there, but you got an AP already so you have that covered with Disneyland.

You can observer the "progress" of the Great Park in Irvine, where the El Torro Marine base was. So far it consists of....I'm not entirely sure. A big balloon ride. That's as much as I know. That and the fact that they've caved and will allow commercial development of some of the land.

And a Cirque show that completely FBUARs traffic at Sand Canyon and the 5.

There is a really cool park at 1313 South Harbor Blvd. in Anaheim!

There are the Tall Ships at Dana Point Harbor. If you take the 133 south you'll hit 2 nature parks, some wine shops and some art areas.