The Cactus Trip Diaries

Today, the last day before returning to Japan, there was more shopping on the agenda, this time at the nursery of Petra Crist. But first a visit to the private Haworthia collection of Bob Kent (S1771)

Again, the main interest here were Haworthia and again many magnificent specimen were photographed, including many hybrids, some the result of selective crosses, others presents from Mother Nature as hummingbirds and insects had used their own selection criteria. All too soon it was time to say thank you and goodbye, or hopefully ‘see you again’ as I hope to take Angie to California in Spring 2011.

S1772 is for our visit to Petra Crist’s Rare Succulents nursery. Mainly ‘other succulents’, rather than cacti. Petra and Eunice are good friends and I had met her at various shows and C&S meetings in previous years, so it was nice to see her nursery at last. There was a nice azure blue Pilosocereus and the largest Stenocactus coptogonus that I have ever seen, both in flower.

Petra had laid on a very welcome lunch of sushi snacks and Eunice sacrificed one of her Julian apple pies. Next we had to complete a number of missions in a  short time: take the Japanese party to their hotel at LAX where they checked in and dropped off their luggage; pick up John Bleck, our travel companion for the coming weeks; have our last sushi meal this time in restaurant Katsu in Manhattan Beach – I’m getting a real taste for raw fish! -; say our goodbye-and-see-you-agains and apologise for not having learned more Japanese words; pick up our next rental car from Dollar at LAX (a nice green Jeep Grand Cherokee, with Pennsylvanian plates!) and finally fall into bed, exhausted.