About 2.53 million residents are expected to take holiday trips this weekend — a 2.1 percent decrease from last year — and of those, 2.17 million are expected to drive to their destinations, the Auto Club said in a statement.

The number of those projected to travel by air is 217,000 verses 248,000 from 2012.

“Despite the drop in air travel, airports still will be very crowded this holiday weekend and planes will be full as airlines continue to consolidate flights to reduce their costs,” said Filomena Andre, the Auto Club’s vice president for travel. “We advise passengers to plan an extra hour into their travel time to get to the airport and through longer security lines due to the holiday.”

Auto Club travel agents surveyed Southland residents and discovered San Diego, Las Vegas, San Francisco, the Central Coast and the Grand Canyon are the top Memorial Day destinations.

Gas prices have dropped slightly and the state average is $4.05 a gallon for regular — 1.1 cents lower than last week, according to the Auto Club’s Weekend Gas Watch.

“After a two-week increase of about 20 cents, drivers have seen prices at many stations drop back below $4 a gallon for regular unleaded in the past week,” Auto Club spokesperson Jeffrey Spring said. “About 2.5 million people are expected to drive to their Memorial Day getaways this weekend, and they’ll be paying about $4 less for a 15-gallon fill-up than they did prior to last year’s holiday.”

Statewide, about 86 percent of the expected 4.08 million travelers are projected to travel by car.

Since 1953, when Gucci first released the Horsebit loafer, the shoe has been worn by generations of stylish and famous men—from Clark Gable to Matt Damon—and has even been inducted into the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent collection. In honor of the shoe’s 60th anniversary, Gucci has reissued its most famed design for 2013 in its widest range of styles yet.

The more than 45 different versions span from colored patent leather and suede to crocodile and python, and even one adorned with metal studs.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the shoe’s tubular construction, which lacks an insole to give the shoe its pliable, lightweight feel. Each pair of Horsebit loafers is still handcrafted in Italy, where it undergoes two and a half days of construction, and is printed with the year of the design’s original release—1953—inside. (http://www.gucci.com/)

The spring edition of The Beverly Hills artSHOW is this weekend from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The free show features art by 250 exhibitors from around the nation, who showcase their work in painting, sculpture, watercolor, photography, mixed media, ceramics, jewelry, drawings and printmaking.

location

The Beverly Hills artSHOW takes places across four sprawling blocks of historic Beverly Gardens Park in the heart of Beverly Hills. The artSHOW runs along Santa Monica Boulevard from Rodeo Drive to Rexford Drive.

how much?

The Beverly Hills artSHOW is and always has been free to the public! We invite the community to come and experience the event. Food and drink is available throughout the show for a nominal charge.

where do i park?

Where else in L.A. can you get free parking? There are many free parking garages throughout the City of Beverly Hills.

food & drink

The Beverly Hills artSHOW features over a block of food trucks plus a beer garden and a wine garden, each with their own menus.

information at the artSHOW

The Beverly Hills artSHOW Information Booth is located near the Beverly Hills sign. Stop by to say hello, pick up programs and maps and gather information about other Beverly Hills community events and programming.

the artists

The Beverly Hills artSHOW features over 250 artists from all over the country working in all mediums. All artists at the Beverly Hills artSHOW are selling their work and each artist is available to talk to artSHOW guests throughout the weekend.

guest galleries

The Beverly Hills artSHOW partners with the Los Angeles Art Association to bring special installations to each show. Click here for more details on the LAAA installations and artists. The spring 2013 artSHOW will also feature a guest gallery by Coagula Curatorial.

via hikespeak.com

Mandeville Canyon is a north-south running trench in Brentwood area of the Santa Monica Mountains. Above Mandeville Canyon is San Vicente Mountain, a 1,960-foot summit that was used at the start of the cold war as a defense site to protect Los Angeles from Soviet attacks. Mandeville Canyon is enclosed by two long finger-like ridges, Westridge and Canyonback Ridge. There are trails running down each ridge that can be reached via fire road from Mandeville Canyon Road, which runs down the center of the residential canyon. These trails can be used to explore the upper stretches of Mandeville Canyon and San Vicente Mountain Park, creating a 5-mile loop with 770 feet of elevation gain.

Beginning from the bottom of the loop, in Mandeville Canyon, you might head east up Hollyhock Fire Road to Canyonback Ridge, but then you would end up looking over your shoulder the entire time to appreciate the scenery. It is preferable to complete the loop in a clockwise direction, ascending first to Westridge, then continuing up to San Vicente Mountain, across Mulholland Fire Road, and down Canyonback Ridge to Hollyhock Fire Road. At the end, there is a short distance to walk on Mandeville Canyon Road to return to the first trailhead.

The dirt hiking road up to Westridge starts from Garden Lane Road, a few hundred feet off Mandeville Canyon Road, 4.8 miles north of Sunset Boulevard. The service road is used by DWP to access an electric line running up the west side of the canyon. The road is closed to other vehicle traffic, but is a welcoming route for hikers and mountain bikers. Half a mile up, stay to the right through a junction with a dead-end road that heads south to more electric poles. Continue out of the canyon, enjoying views to the east toward Canyonback Ridge and the San Gabriel Mountains beyond.

Beverly Hills’ biannual artSHOW event will get some extra spunk this time around when sculptor David Jang comes to Beverly Gardens Park May 18-19, along with more than 240 other artists.

According to a release Jang takes cast-off materials like lamps and fax machines to create sculptures that completely transform their roots.

“Consumer objects are becoming the new landscape,” says Jang in the release, noting that the artist’s job is no longer to create the immortal–the disposable “which we use to express ourselves or feel important for briefer periods” will do, he says.

Jang is coming through the cooperation of the Los Angeles Art Association as are several other emerging artists. Coagula Curatorial is also helping artSHOW bring in some new participants, including Silver Lake’s Matt Weinberg, a Beverly Hills High graduate.

The event take places in the Beverly Gardens stretch along Santa Monica Boulevard from Rexford to Rodeo. Artists will be displaying their work and available to meet and discuss it with visitors.

Show hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days and admission is free, as is parking in the city’s parking structure at 450 N. Crescent Dr.

Check back at the site to find out more about the artists and other activities coming.

Cinco de Mayo is an annual celebration of Mexican culture and heritage that takes place across the U.S. and regionally in Mexico, where it’s known in the state of Puebla as El Día de la Batalla de Puebla (“The Day of the Battle of Puebla”). Cinco de Mayo is observed to commemorate the Mexican army’s victory over the much larger, better-armed French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. The U.S. celebration of Cinco de Mayo originated in Mexican-American communities of the American West, Southwest and Northwest. You can find Los Angeles Cinco de Mayo events on HERE.

via Anthea Raymond | BH Patch

A sweep of local streets on April 24 yielded handicapped parking passes in two different colors.

Bevelry Hills Police confiscated 21 parking passes, one of them red, the rest of them blue, all of them posted by drivers who could not provide underlying registration, according to Chad Lynn, Director of Parking Operations for the City of Beverly Hills.

(See photo above.)

Lynn told Beverly Hills Patch that those with handicapped passes must be able to produce papers that show the passes are assigned to them or to someone they are driving for–much as drivers of vehicles must produce registration when asked.

Lynn, who observed some of the crackdown on April 24, said a total of 112 parkers were stopped in two blocks along Canon Drive as well as several blocks along Dayton and Brighton ways.

As previously reported here, more raids are expected.

One Beverly Hills Patch user has suggested the corner of Clifton Way and Arnaz Drive as a good target, noting “amazing how many handicapped work in Beverly Hills at medical buildings.”

via Bailey S. Barnard | Robb Report

The South Korean electronics giant Samsung, one of the world’s leading TV manufacturers, just announced current and forthcoming availability for its 2013 display panels. The company’s new flagship series, the F8000 LED-edge-lit LCD TV, comes in 46-, 55-, 60-, 65-, and 75-inch screen sizes. The first of the F8000 sets began shipping in March, and the $8,000 75-inch model hits the market in May.

Samsung is revered for its LED screens, and the F8000 embodies what the company does best. It features a sleek bezel that is one fifth of an inch at its thinnest point, as well as a newly designed curved stand for those who choose not to mount the TV on a wall. Technical highlights include the first quad-core processor in a Samsung TV, to enable ultrafast browsing of the set’s countless smart features and content apps, as well as a full array of LEDs around the LCD screen. For the F8000 sets, Samsung implemented a microdimming system able to separately dim hundreds of screen zones along with precision black-level hardware, which both help ensure optimal brightness levels.

By the end of the year, Samsung plans to begin delivering its first 4K model, the UN85S9. This 85-inch behemoth, which will deliver four times the screen resolution of 1080p TVs, will join the Sony- and LG-manufactured 4K sets currently on the market. Few details on the set are available beyond its price—$39,999—and the fact that the company is currently taking preorders. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Samsung also showed off a 110-inch 4K TV, on which even fewer details are available. But prospective Samsung owners can rest assured knowing that these models will be well worth the wait. (www.samsung.com)