Lifestyle
He built a mini-Disneyland in his backyard — and you can walk through it this spring
The castle is immaculate, its gold etching regal and its towers a bold shade of sky blue. The band at its gates plays no real instruments, but the musicians look dapper and at the ready. Before it all sits an elongated train station, a mix of Victorian grandeur and small-town affability. Look in the distance — there’s a Southern-style mansion, multiple distinct mountains and even another castle, this one nestled at the top of a mound, its spires peering over a wall.
All of it is familiar. It’s Disneyland, mostly.
The iconic entrance to Disneyland, re-created in the Sheegogs’ Anaheim backyard.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
But the setting, the backyard of a modest suburban home in Anaheim Hills, makes it clear this is no official product of the Walt Disney Co. Yet fans flock to it, with free tickets for the rare open house disappearing often in minutes. Welcome to Castle Peak and Thunder Railroad, as David Sheegog calls his backyard garden, home to a miniature love letter to Disneyland and Disney animation. Creating this scaled-down universe has been a passion of his for about a quarter of a century now.
Over the decades, Castle Peak has garnered the attention of local media, become a social media darling and grown with the Sheegog family, as what once was meant to be a gift for his children has taken on a life of its own. The kids have left home, but Castle Peak continues to flourish.
As Sheegog, an independent architect, looks forward to retirement — he turned 65 last year but is still in practice — he speaks of Castle Peak as if it’s just getting started. Walk with Sheegog to the family garage and find not just storage but a workshop, currently home to a model for a “Star Wars”-inspired entryway that Sheegog hopes will someday lead to a new section of his backyard garden, this one inspired by Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
David and Frances Sheegog pose with their mini-Disneyland in their Anaheim Hills home.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
This is no mere modest hobby. That’s apparent not just in the details but in the way Sheegog today thinks of entertaining guests, who are welcomed each spring and fall.
There are small but irresistible touches. Sheegog’s version of the Casey Jr. Circus Train is equipped, for instance, with its own sound module, playing the locomotive’s theme song as it chugs across a bridge. But over the years, Sheegog has embraced his showman side. A recent addition to the patio is what Sheegog calls the “enchanted tiki waterbar,” where a glass window erupts into a thunder and lightning show, complete with a mini-rain storm created by a pump and reservoir.
While the actual Disneyland Resort is just a few minutes from the Sheegog home, Castle Peak speaks to the way the theme park can become a sort of communal hub that can touch multiple generations and stand as something for which people can connect around. For many in Southern California, Disneyland sits somewhere between a landmark and a rite of passage, a place of familial and friendship rituals that stays with you long after the grand finale of the evening’s fireworks.
The Sheegogs’ much smaller version of the iconic statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse, whose real-life counterpart graces the entrance to the magic castle at Disneyland.
A miniature model of the floating balloon house from “Up.” (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Fans walk in the backyard of the Sheegogs’ home, lifting themselves up over the brick walls to look a little closer at the miniatures laid out in front of them.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Sheegog believes that’s one reason why his backyard, also home to a 105-year-old Chinese elm bonsai, can barely meet its demand.
“There was a woman here one time, and she was close to 100,” Sheegog says. “She worked in the park on opening day, when Walt Disney was there, and worked in the park her whole life. She had a whole crowd around her, just listening to stories about what it was like. She started weeping. As she was talking, she was reliving her life when she was 20 years old, her first love, where she met her husband. All these memories come back, and a lot of people who come here are that way because we’re in Anaheim. We grew up with the park, and it has a certain sentimental niche in your psyche. People just want to be around it, and our place provides an outlet for that.”
Sheegog kind of stumbled into model railroading. About 25 years ago he was perusing for a gift for a young nephew, now in his 30s, who was a fan of “Thomas the Tank Engine.” Shopping for the latter at a local railroad store, the Orange County native who grew up within walking distance to Disneyland was suddenly hooked by the model railroad industry. Things quickly spiraled.
“This was back in 1997 or so, and I said, ‘This will be a 10-year project.’ As I developed the model — I built a model on our dining room table — we had to decide on the major structures,” Sheegog says. “Most of the garden railroads I had seen people had bought pre-made kits of little plastic buildings that are all about 12 inches by 8 inches. They look like premade little buildings, like a barber shop. No. I wanted to build this from scratch, and wanted them to be impressive, like 5 feet across and 4 feet tall. Or in the case of one our castles, 7 feet tall. I had to plan these out as to where the major buildings would be.”
Mini-riders descend down the slope of a shrunken-down Splash Mountain.
An homage to Mulan in a small potted plant. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
A mini-Merida stands proudly within a circle of rocks.
References to Disneyland’s It’s a Small World ride are nestled in small pots around the Sheegogs’ attraction.
At the time, he was thinking of set pieces that would look akin to mini-golf buildings. Sheegog once worked at Disneyland on the Davy Crockett’s Explorer Canoes, and the family’s eldest daughter is named Ariel after “The Little Mermaid.” Thus, Disneyland was a natural theme for the family to explore for the backyard garden. And the Walt Disney Co., of course, has a romanticized history with railroads, as Walt Disney once had a backyard railway of his own and is said to have dreamed up Mickey Mouse on a cross-country train trip.
A Disney-inspired backyard is not, necessarily, an anomaly in American suburbia. HGTV once ran a show dedicated to the practice, and in the early days of the pandemic it became a social media trend to re-create Disney rides at home, with fans experimenting with rudimentary special effects and bringing pets into the action. Some have even built makeshift roller coasters in the yards.
Young visitors look out onto a portion of a railroad and lagoon-like setting within the Sheegogs’ massive attraction.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
And today, there are host of businesses that attempt to tap the Disney fanbase. One can find elaborately themed homes for rent, as well as pop-up bars such as Montclair’s the Set, which rotates among Disney motifs throughout the year.
Sheegog’s creation has both a professional sheen and a do-it-yourself quality. It’s important to note that it will always be free, as the family doesn’t want to attract the attention of corporate lawyers — timed reservations are required solely to make sure the home and neighborhood aren’t overrun. Aside from Sheegog’s heavily detailed, multiple foot structures — he’s re-created references to the now-defunct Splash Mountain and Disney/Pixar films such as “Up” — he’s also peppered in hidden nods to most every Disney or Pixar animated film from 1937 (“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”) to 2021 (“Encanto”).
“That will be the last one,” Sheegog says of “Encanto.” “I’ve finally put a cap on it. I’ve got 80 films out there. It’s a bunch. I’m running out of room. If they keep coming out, I can’t keep doing something. All my energy is going into other projects with the railroad.”
When Sheegog builds a structure, it’s no simple feat. Occasionally, he says, he’ll get inquiries from guests on the cost of hiring Sheegog to build, say, a Sleeping Beauty Castle. “They think you can do it for $300 or $400, and I say, ‘It’s probably going to be about $70,000 to build that thing again,” he says. “It takes someone six months of their life to build that.”
Money isn’t a topic Sheegog likes to discuss — “We are not wealthy people here, and I’m trying to figure out a way to retire because there’s not a way to do it right now” — and he’s quick to add that the castle didn’t cost him tens of thousands; he’s simply factoring in labor costs. He estimates that over the last two decades he’s sunk what would be the equivalent of buying a pool into his backyard Disneyland.
The investment shows. His initial Sleeping Beauty Castle was built utilizing plywood, PVC, wood turnings and cast resin veneer, but he has since updated the structure with largely polyurethane foam boards and 3D-printed materials. There are detailed galleries on his website documenting the builds of a number of structures, including Rapunzel’s tower and Beast’s castle.
Tinker Bell, nestled in a green forest scene with her fellow Pixie Hollow fairies.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
The Skyway, which no longer exists in the IRL Disneyland, is preserved as a reference in the Sheegogs’ backyard attraction.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
A key appeal of Castle Peak is that it doesn’t try to re-create Disneyland, per se: an equal number of miniatures reference animated films as they do park attractions. For the latter, Sheegog includes some that no longer exist, including the Skyway, a set he purchased from Von Roll Model Ropeways rather than built, as well as some references to Florida’s Walt Disney World.
Nothing feels incongruous. Disneyland, after all, exists as much in our memories and our imaginations as it does at 1313 Disneyland Drive.
Castle Peak and Thunder Railroad
Today, Sheegog is talking about moving the retaining wall on the house to further expand Castle Peak, wanting two new sections, one that nods to Disneyland’s Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland, which closed to make way for Big Thunder Mountain, and the aforementioned Galaxy’s Edge expansion. Time and money are hurdles, though, and he’s considered crowd-funding for Castle Peak’s continued development.
And yet that’s another aspect to Castle Peak’s enduring appeal. Like Disneyland, it’s never finished. “It’s like little home additions,” Sheegog says. “But rather than putting on a new bedroom we’re going to do another mountain or another rock feature.”
And it’s all in the name of capturing a little bit of magic.
Various species of sharks — some of which are endangered, while others are listed as vulnerable — are hauled on shore at dawn at the Tanjung Luar port on June 9, 2025, in East Lombok, Indonesia. Tanjung Luar is one of the largest shark markets in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, from where shark fins are exported to other Asian markets — primarily Hong Kong and China — and their bones are used in cosmetic products also sold to China.
Nicole Tung/Fondation Carmignac
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“We were fighting over who had caught more fish, and then I saw my crewmate pushed overboard by the captain,” Akbar Fitrian, 29, an Indonesian crewmember says as he recounts an incident aboard a Chinese-owned fishing vessel in 2022. “The ship then started to drive away as my crewmate tried to swim towards us. And then I don’t know what happened. The captain never reported the incident.”
The seas of Southeast Asia — home to some of the richest in biodiversity in the world — have long been in decline. Since the 1950s, the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that 70-95% of fish stocks have been depleted and are at risk of collapse, perpetuated by the rise of industrial-scale fishing, much of which is illegal. Legal overfishing is another factor, and both are propped up by weak regulations, insufficient monitoring and insatiable demand. Approximately half of the world’s global marine fish catch comes from the seas of Southeast Asia, according to the U.N., and it comes at a calamitous cost.
In the United States, approximately 50% of the imported seafood comes from Asia, with nearly $6.3 billion in trade coming from China, Vietnam, Indonesia and India alone, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Behind the illicit seafood trade is an opaque world standing at the crossroads of intertwining issues. There is the legacy of brutal human rights violations that have enabled sea slavery to become the norm. Those involved in the efforts of organizations like the international Freedom Fund and Thailand’s Labour Protection Network, which work to end modern-day slavery in the region, say many workers are murdered at sea, abused and often brought into a cycle of debt bondage.
There is the lawless nature of the seas, which has emboldened traffickers to exploit desperate fishermen and impoverished casual laborers. Then there are the geopolitical factors at play: In a race to dominate the seas, China and, to a lesser extent, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Malaysia have all built outposts and bases on shoals, reefs and atolls. Fishing fleets — of which China has the largest in the world — are fast becoming more militarized as a result.
All of this has imposed a heavy cost on unique ecosystems and led to devastating socioeconomic impacts on artisanal and small-scale fishers.
Three countries illustrate the intersectional nature of overfishing:
Thailand
Fishing vessels are seen docked together at a landing site in Chumphon, Thailand, on Jan. 22, 2025.
Nicole Tung/Fondation Carmignac
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“Fish were in abundance before,” says Mimit Hantele, 53, a member of the Urak Lawoi tribe on the island of Koh Lipe in Thailand. “But now, the fishing season is a lot shorter, the variety of fish is far fewer, and I sell less. So I take tourists out on scuba expeditions to earn money.”
For generations, the Urak Lawoi plied the rich waters around them for sustenance. Sea gypsies in a time past, the villagers evolved to rely only on what they could catch and used simple fishing equipment cast from small wooden boats.
Then, in the 1970s, came the big Thai and Malaysian fishing boats. Fishermen on Koh Lipe say the boats fish illegally around the island, appearing only at night to escape detection and in a protected national forest area. The ships use purse seiner nets and demersal trawlers, destroying the coral underneath and, consequently, the habitat for fish. Such overexploitation has led the Indigenous group to turn to tourism to make up for lost income and declining fish stocks. “Fishing is in our blood,” Hantele said, but “our way of life has changed. We can’t rely only on the fish.”
Frozen Spanish mackerel and other species of fish in cold storage in Samut Sakhon, Thailand, on Jan. 15, 2025.
Nicole Tung/Fondation Carmignac
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Fishermen mend nets in Samut Sakhon, Thailand, on Jan. 15, 2025.
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Small-scale artisanal fishermen shake sardines from nets to gather them en masse after returning to shore with their catch, in the Gulf of Thailand, off the coast of Prachuap, Thailand, on Jan. 20, 2025.
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According to a 2001 report from the U.N., roughly 80% of fishers in Southeast Asia at the time were small-scale or artisanal, relying on traditional practices. However, declining nearshore fish stocks have forced many artisanal fishers to venture farther from shore in search of commercially valuable species. Added to that are government subsidies for fuel and tax breaks for commercial fishing vessels, which have propped up the seafood industry. Rapid advancement in maritime technology has made fleets far more effective at finding rich hunting grounds while avoiding detection by switching off their monitoring systems.
Oranee Jongkolpath, 30, a veterinarian at Thailand’s Department of Marine and Coastal Resources’ research and development center in the Rayong province, prepares to clean a hawksbill turtle in Prasae, Thailand, on Jan. 18, 2025. The turtle was found by fishermen in a garbage patch and was likely entangled in ghost nets — fishing nets that are lost or discarded by fishermen — that had caused severe damage to its two front flippers.
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A seafood merchant displays dried seahorses for sale in Chumphon, Thailand, on Jan. 22, 2025. Dozens of countries around the world are involved in the dried seahorse trade, with Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and India being the largest exporters. As the trade of seahorses, which are typically used for traditional medicines, has sharply increased, the seahorse catch has declined over time. Seahorses are among the species protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
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Lax regulations on the most destructive types of fishing, particularly demersal trawling and cyanide fishing, the capture of juvenile fish that prevents the replenishment of stocks, the poor oversight of labor laws and the exploitation of workers desperate to earn a living have all contributed to the devastating knock-on effects for communities along coastlines and the potentially irreversible environmental consequences.
Members of a crew working on a Thai fishing vessel, most of whom are from Myanmar, prepare to show their documents to Port In Port Out (PIPO) inspectors in Chumphon, Thailand, on Jan. 22, 2025. PIPO inspection centers were set up in 2018, following an outcry in the international community over Thailand’s gross human rights abuses in its fishing industry.
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A Burmese dock worker sorts fish after a catch from a Thai vessel was unloaded in Ranong, Thailand, on Jan. 23, 2025.
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In Thailand last year, artisanal fishermen held protests over the rollback of major fisheries reforms implemented a decade ago that had helped to rebuild fish stocks in Thai waters. Thai corporations, which own a significant share of commercial fishing vessels, pushed the government to deregulate the fishing industry to increase their profits. Protestors focused on their concerns that relaxing the rules would revive illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and lead to increased overfishing. The rollbacks, they argued, would reduce transparency and accountability across the industry and reduce checks on gear and labor. Less transparency would lead to less knowledge about what is left in the sea. In turn, sustainability decreases, hurting artisanal fishers who depend on the sea for sustenance and livelihoods.
The Philippines
Filipino fishermen unload Yellowfin tuna, Bigeye tuna and blue marlin at a fish port in General Santos, the Philippines, on May 21, 2025.
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The first time Donald Carmen was harassed by Chinese boats off the coast of Palawan was in December 2024. The following February, they harassed him and another fisherman again, getting close enough to hit their outriggers. “They forced us to move away and recorded us with cell phones and cameras. I have been fishing in this area since 2016, and back then, everyone was free to fish. I would catch 400-500 kilograms of fish in a night, about 60 nautical miles offshore. Now, because I don’t dare venture out as far, I’m lucky if I catch 200-300 kilograms over three days,” Carmen said as he steered his banca just weeks later, on the lookout for Chinese fishing boats and militia.
A drone shot of the shoreline in Rizal, Palawan, the Philippines, on May 28, 2025. Many fishermen here have lost more than half their incomes because of harassment by Chinese ships, limiting the distances they can go out to sea to fish for specific species.
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Vincent Gehisan, 36, enjoys a meal at his home in Quezon, Palawan, the Philippines, on May 24, 2025. Gehisan was hassled and detained for nearly a day at sea by Chinese Coast Guard and navy ships while out on a resupply mission the year before and now says he’s afraid to venture far from Filipino shores to fish.
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People sing karaoke on May 21, 2025, at a local bar near the main fish port complex in General Santos, the Philippines, where the clientele are mainly fishermen on their days off.
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Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is inextricably linked to the geopolitical struggle for maritime dominance in the South China Sea. Over the past two decades, China has rapidly scaled up its fishing militias in a race to assert control over a vast area while trying to meet the country’s insatiable demand for seafood. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan have followed suit on a much smaller scale.
The South China Sea — or the East Sea, as Vietnam calls it, and the West Philippine Sea, as it’s known in the Philippines — is one of the world’s most strategic waterways. China’s use of its fishing fleet to control trade routes and dominate territory to create maritime buffer zones threatens the food security and livelihoods of fishers in the region.
Family members of Filipino fishermen place bait on fishing lines in Quezon, Palawan, the Philippines, on May 24, 2025.
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Small-scale Filipino fishermen unload their catch a fish port in General Santos, the Philippines, on May 22, 2025. The city is known as the Philippines’ tuna capital and hub for tuna fishing and products exports.
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While Chinese aggression has persisted for years in areas off Zambales, a province of the Philippines, it has only recently affected waters off the coast of Rizal in Palawan, as China is believed to be building up its presence in the Sabina and Bombay shoals, much closer to the Filipino coast — encroaching on the Philippines’ claim to the Kalayaan Island Group — from its original areas of claim like the Spratly Islands and the Scarborough Shoal. Among some of the tactics used by Chinese fishing militias to deter fishermen are water cannons, using swarming and encircling techniques, military-grade lasers and ramming fishing boats to intimidate and drive them from fishing grounds.
As countries in the region militarize their fishing fleets, the cost will ultimately be detrimental to ecological sustainability and geopolitical stability.
Indonesia
Indonesian fishermen unload various species, including sharks and wedgefish, which are one of the most threatened, in Tegal, Indonesia, on June 13, 2025.
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In Indonesia, poverty, lack of opportunities and desperation have pushed thousands of Indonesian men into trafficking circles, while others are lured by the promises of a well-paid job in the construction or service industries before being put aboard a fishing vessel unbeknownst to them. Patima Tungpuchayakul, the founder of Thailand’s Labour Protection Network, says hundreds of fishermen go missing from commercial vessels each year, and many more are brutalized while facing appalling conditions and inhumane, unsanitary conditions on board, often at the mercy of the captain or the ship’s owners.
Labor rights activists at the Migrant Resource Center in Pemalang, Indonesia, fishermen and a widow of a woman still fighting for compensation after her husband’s death say agencies in central Java are adept at recruiting Indonesian crew to work primarily on Chinese fishing vessels, entrapping them in a cycle of debt bondage and, in many cases, effectively enslaving them at sea. Workers are not offered compensation for death or injuries unless they or their families were aware of what kind of insurance the vessel owner had for them. In the worst circumstances, they face brutal working conditions and 16- to 22-hour workdays and are often subject to physical violence.
Fishmongers gather to sell the catch brought in at dawn by fishermen at the Tanjung Luar port on June 9, 2025, in East Lombok, Indonesia.
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A drone image of the largest commercial fish port in Indonesia, Muara Angke, where hundreds of commercial fishing vessels are docked, in Jakarta, Indonesia, on June 15, 2025.
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A fisherman poses for a photo in Pemalang, Indonesia, on June 13, 2025. Both Tegal and Pemalang are known as hubs for recruiting laborers who then work on commercial fishing vessels for Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean companies.
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Southeast Asia is still a hub for slave labor, primarily in Thailand and Indonesia, where the seafood trade contributes much of the tuna, shrimp and trash fish used for fishmeal to the supply chains of major retailers and pet food brands in the U.S. and Europe.
“There is now less physical violence and coercion — but coercion is now more debt-based,” says Rosia Wongsuban, a program advisor at the Freedom Fund, a nonprofit working to end modern-day slavery. “Working conditions are the same. Because of a labor shortage, there aren’t enough workers to operate on vessels, and then the crew needs to take the extra burden.”
“In order to work on the fishing vessel, which was Chinese-owned, I was given a loan of 4 million Rupiah,” Akbar Fitrian, 29, a fisherman interviewed in Jakarta, explains. “1 million went to paying for fishing equipment, and then I had to work until I paid back the other 3 million. Sometimes, I had to keep borrowing more to continue working to pay off the initial loan. Sometimes I would only end up with enough salary to buy cigarettes. Sometimes I went into the red.”
Anis Khuprotin, 28, rests her head on the gravesite of her husband, Muhamad Nur, in Tegal, Indonesia, on June 13, 2025. Anis’ husband died on board a commercial fishing vessel after a piece of equipment came loose and struck him in the head. Staff from the recruiting agency the hired her husband told her he died of a heart attack instead of admitting the truth in an attempt to avoid paying insurance fees to the family.
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Indra, 28, who declined to provide his last name out of fear for his safety, dresses as a clown and plays music to earn some extra money in his neighborhood in Jakarta, Indonesia, on June 14, 2025. Indra, who previously worked on a commercial fishing vessel, recounted harrowing experiences at sea, where he said he witnessed abuses of his fellow cremates. Since returning home, he’s refused to sign up for another job on a commercial fishing vessel, but says he has limited opportunities owing to the lack of a school degree. He currently works in a warehouse, packing boxes, and dresses as a clown to earn extra income.
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Fishermen play a card game on June 10, 2025, on Maringkik Island, off the caost of East Lombok, Indonesia.
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For the nearly 10 million people who rely on these fisheries for their livelihoods and source of protein, the future of Southeast Asia’s fisheries hangs in the balance, at the mercy of consumer demand and political will to enforce laws. The region faces not just ecological collapse, but deepening poverty, food insecurity and social instability if illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing continues unchecked. Overfishing occurs because high demand and global overconsumption for seafood far exceed the ocean’s ability to replenish itself. Growing markets — especially in China, the European Union and North America — have transformed fish and fish products into a highly profitable global commodity. Exports from Southeast Asia alone amount to over $5 billion worth of fish products to the United States each year, illustrating the scale of international trade. This demand fuels industrial-scale fishing operations such as bottom trawlers and purse seiners, which sweep through vast areas of ocean indiscriminately. Supported by government subsidies, these fleets prioritize maximum yield, even when fish stocks are already severely depleted.
But decline is not inevitable. With stronger regional cooperation, transparent supply chains, corporate accountability and informed consumer choices, Southeast Asia can reclaim stewardship over its waters. The survival of its fisheries — and of the communities that depend on them — hinges on decisions being made now, far from shore.
Various species of sharks — some of which are endangered while others are listed as vulnerable — are hauled on shore at dawn by commercial fishermen at the Tanjung Luar port on June 10, 2025, in East Lombok, Indonesia.
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This body of work, based on a nine-month-long investigation supported by the Fondation Carmignac, is on exhibit at the Bronx Documentary Center through April 26.
Nicole Tung is a photojournalist working primarily in the Middle East and Asia. You can see more of her work on her website, NicoleTung.com, or on Instagram, at @nicoletung.
This story is part of Image’s April’s Thresholds issue, a tour of L.A. architecture as it’s actually experienced.
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(Serdar Ayvaz / Yont Studio)
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Estudio Persona, the L.A. studio run by Uruguayan design duo Emiliana Gonzalez and Jessie Young, is a living, breathing wishlist. Made of metal and hand-blown glass, this lamp is the place where angles meet curves — a timeless piece with a healthy dose of edge. estudiopersona.com
Alaïa, nylon Maxi Petticoat, $5,030
When we think of an Alaïa piece we’re essentially thinking about shapes — of the body, of the clothes, of the shape made by the clothes on the body. This nylon Maxi Petticoat from the spring/summer 2026 collection, with its asymmetrical hemline and voluminous fit, is a kind of architecture, a way to build yourself into the world around you. maison-alaia.com
Loewe, Aire Sutileza Elixir Eau de Parfum 50Ml, $210
Image April 2026 Coveted
(Loewe Perfumes)
Loewe has added another perfume to its scent directory, and the sixth Elixir in a collection of fragrances that boast an intense concentration of essential oils created by the brand’s perfumer Núria Cruelles with the Spanish Rockrose in mind. The Aire Sutileza Elixir is floral, fresh and earthy, featuring notes of pear, lemon, jasmine sambac, vetiver, sandalwood and musk. perfumesloewe.com
Sunday Puzzle
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This week’s challenge
Today’s puzzle is a tribute to Mimi. Every answer is a familiar two word phrase or name in which each word starts with the letters MI-.
Ex. Assignment for soldiers –> MILITARY MISSION
1. Pageant title for a contestant from Detroit
2. One of the Twin Cities
3. Nickname for the river through New Orleans
4. Super short skirt
5. Neighborhood in Los Angeles that contains Museum Row
6. Just over four times the distance from the earth to the moon
7. Goateed sing-along conductor of old TV
8. American financier who pioneered so-called “junk bonds”
9. Little accident
10. Land-based weapon in America’s nuclear arsenal
11. In “Snow White,” the evil queen’s words before “on the wall”
Last week’s challenge
Last week’s challenge comes from Benita Rice, of Salem, Ore. Name a famous foreign landmark (5,4). Change the eighth letter to a V and rearrange the result to make an adjective that describes this landmark. What landmark is it?
Answer
Notre Dame –> Renovated
Winner
Chee Sing Lee of Bangor, Maine
This week’s challenge
This week’s challenge comes from James Ellison, of Jefferson City, Mo. Think of a popular movie of the past decade. Change the last letter in its title. The result will suggest a lawsuit between two politicians of the late 20th century — one Republican and one Democrat. What’s the movie and who are the people?
If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Thursday, April 23 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.
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North Carolina37 seconds ago
NC Lottery Pick 3 Day, Pick 3 Evening results for April 19, 2026
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North Dakota7 minutes agoWindy conditions fuel shop fire in rural Mapleton
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Ohio13 minutes agoWanda Lou Bailey, Louisville, Ohio
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Oklahoma19 minutes agoCord Rager’s Return, Consistent Hitting Earns Oklahoma First SEC Sweep of Missouri
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Oregon25 minutes agoSmall Oregon town residents’ trust shaken as state sues disaster nonprofit founder
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Pennsylvania31 minutes agoMother, 6 children die in Central Pennsylvania house explosion, state police say
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Rhode Island37 minutes agoThe Real Housewives of Rhode Island Recap: Wrong Side of the Tracks
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South-Carolina43 minutes agoSouth Carolina Lottery Pick 3, Pick 4 results for April 19, 2026