Leslie and I flew back to California a week or so ago for what we call “admin” – stuff that just needs to get done back in the States.

For me, a major project was to find a new home for the wings of my Tiger Moth project because our existing hangar is being torn down to make room for a larger hangar.

Ali, a good friend of mine who finished building his beautiful Wheeler Express as I was starting my plane, graciously offered his hangar for storage while the new hangar gets built.  Good friends Allan and Gary helped me take the wings down from the old hangar.

Ali and Gary (hidden) are mounting one of the wings in Ali’s hangar.  My replica Tiger Moth (a 1930s era bi-plane British trainer) has 4 wings (upper and lower on each side) so we stored 2 wings on each side of Ali’s hangar.

All snug in their new home for a year or so!  The “tail feathers” are strapped to the side of a wing.  When I return in the future I still need to build the fuselage, add the engine and instruments, cover the whole thing with fabric – then have fun!

Other “admin” stuff that got done was getting yellow fever (for Panama), typhoid, and booster shots, our annual physicals, and on and on.  Also need to do taxes before we leave – oh joy…!

Before Christmas a major 4 lane boulevard was shut down and converted into a street fair for the holidays.

This was the way we’d go up to Wal-Mart and a huge shopping mall a couple of blocks past Wal-Mart.  Plus, that boulevard was the route that was used by a major MetroBus route we often rode.

For the first week or so, the bus routes were re-routed to further bus stops than the one closest to the Casa, but then things settled down and we could ride the bus up to the mall again.

In addition to all the normal things you’d see in a county fair (rides for small kids, rides for “big” kids, shooting galleries, food vendors, etc) something that was different for us were elaborate photo booths where families could have their pictures taken.  There were over 20 such booths and on one stretch of  the street about a dozen or so were all lined up together.

The booths had different themes (Christmas, Disney characters, etc) but each of the booths always had 3 “wise men” in elaborate costumes, wigs and makeup.

But looking closely, each booth always had one of the “wise men” in black face paint.  Take a look at the middle “wise man”.

I’ve wondered how that concept evolved into a “de rigueur” requirement if you wanted to set up your own photo booth!