The Wednesday Post

Back to California
essentially... an industrial wine factory.

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...in which we find out what's happening these days at the sites of last week's boring postcards!

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ANIMAL COLOR SERIES From the San Diego Zoo
Okapi -- Eastern Belgian Congo 

There are still Okapis at the San Diego Zoo.  You can watch a video of one of their Okapi calves here, if you like. Baby animals!

The Belgian Congo, however, no longer exists.  Okapi are now native to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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Upjohn's old-fashioned drugstore in Disneyland.  

As you might expect, the Disneyland Upjohn Pharmacy no longer exists.  It represented Big Pharma in the Magical Kingdom from 1955 to 1970.  You can read its just-slightly-surreal story here.  I particularly recommend the article from the Upjohn corporate newsletter. 

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STRAWBERRY PICKIN' TIME

Strawberry pickin' still exists on the central California coast.  In Santa Barbara County, for instance, Strawberries are the most valuable agricultural commodity, with the 2012 crop valued at a whopping $441 million dollars.  (SantaMariaTimes.com, "SB County’s ag crop value tops $1B, again -- Strawberries remain king in 2012," April 16, 2013)

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WAWONA TREE

The Wawona Tree no longer exists.

It was replaced after the winter of 1969 with a frankly less interesting attraction, the "Fallen Tunnel Tree."

"Let's drive our car, um, past the Fallen Tunnel Tree!"

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ITALIAN SWISS COLONY VINEYARD ASTI, SONOMA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

The Italian Swiss Colony Vineyard sort of still exists.  At one time, the place was apparently a big deal, and several sources claim, in the traditional easy-to-say, hard-to-prove way, that it was California's second most visited tourist attraction during the 1960s.  (First honors, naturally, went to Disneyland, which at the time was packing 'em in with its famous Upjohn Drug Store exhibit.)  But then things went into a decline, and in the context of "an evolving wine business and a string of ownership changes, the Asti Winery shut its doors to the public in the late 1980s and essentially became an industrial wine factory."  (San Fransisco Chronicle, "Cellar No. 8 a tribute to Asti Winery's birth," May 31, 2009)

Italian Swiss Colony Vineyard Scene at Asti, Sonoma County

In the last decade, though, they've made a stab at firing up a boutique brand.  Who knows?  Maybe in a decade or two they'll be making another run at Disneyland?