A Quick Catch Up – July 15th 2007

Well I haven’t posted in a while so going to give you a quick run down of the highs and lows of the last week or so…

We started our second day in SF by checking out the golden gate bridge and the park on the north side of the bridge, which gave some awesome views of the bridge and city.

From there we headed down the peninsula to sky line drive and cruised along the ridge between the ocean and Silicon Valley. We stopped in a few places for a short hike on windy hill to get a view of the valley and Stanford. Other places along the ridge offered pull outs to view smaller red woods.

Coming down off the hill we wandered around Stanford trying to meet up with Brian. You ever tried to find someone when neither or you know where you are going… its fun…. Joe was nice enough to drive us to and join us for a meal while we caught up. Later that night we caught transformers with Joe and some of his friends, which made it a late drive back into the heart of SF.

In the morning, we drove up to Folsom, CA where I dragged Lee around to look at possible apartments. After looking at my top six options I picked one and signed a lease. Before I go too much further… I hate shopping what a pain in the ass … especially when its hot outside. So after grabbing dinner I dropped Lee off at the Sacramento Airport officially putting an end to my great American vacation.

Now the work begins…. One of my new coworkers was nice enough to let me stay with him and his family while I got settled. I spent the next few days running around like a mad man trying to take care of getting my apartment livable… shopping for a bed… utilities… furniture… food… fixing my car. So much shopping! Also on a side note having to wait for the delivery guy in your apartment with no internet, no TV, no chair, and nothing to do while you wait is literally like watching paint dry.

As Friday rolled around I hit the road yet again heading south to meet up with my cousin and uncle to explore Sequoia National Park. All I have to say is WOW. These trees are huge… being the largest in the world they should be, but on top of that the forests are just amazing. After checking out the largest tree in the world, Sherman, we did a long hike up to Weaver Lake around sitting high up in and alpine meadow.

On day two in the park I was pleasantly surprised to see my first large predator mammal, a mother brown bear and her two cubs. Once we the bears wandered out of sight we hiked up to Topkoa Falls (sp?) Following that hike I took in the views from the top of morrow rock where I could almost see all the way to the ocean from fairly close to the Eastern side of California.

Anyway I’m tired and I have to start work tomorrow, but all in all I’ve had a blast the last few weeks.

Day 13 – Morro Bay, CA to San Francisco, CA – July 7th, 2007

With a stiff ocean breeze we took off up Rt. 1 following the Pacific Ocean north. Not too far up the road we ran into an elephant seal preserve, which turned out to be a pleasant surprise. After seeing a few sunning themselves and some just off the shore making this weird loud call that sounded like a deep gargle I was about to leave when we noticed a huge clump of the seals on the shore huddling together… I can’t blame them it was cold. While there I noticed more chimp monks… wanting food… pretty typical… but I’ve noted this is probably the 6^th different type we have seen between the coasts each with a different coat pattern. Anyway I thought that was interesting.

Not too far after that the road started to curve and weave high up into the hills along cliffs a few hundred feet above the ocean providing for some great views.

Eventually we jumped on a real high way and drove into down town San Francisco with all of the city traffic fun one can expect. Once we got settled in it was straight off to China Town for some much needed dinner. After walking through China town we passed through North Beach, which seems like a type of little Italy. Then we stumbled across Lombard St. and made the long hilly hike to the top to watch a non stop stream of tourists going down the road. Walking around the city just reminded me of just how incredibly hilly this city is. From Lombard we went down to the Fisherman’s Warf where we could get a look at the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Unfortunately it was a big foggy, so the photos aren’t as clear as I would like. Out on one of the peers we found a group of seal lions sunning themselves on the docks. To top off the city excursion we waited in line to grab a trolley ride back over the hills to the Union Square side of town. On a side note it’s really cold here which is nice for a change… just not when you’re wearing shorts and a t-shirt on a trolley that’s flying down hills.

Day 12 – Los Angeles, CA to Morro Bay, CA – July 6th, 2007

Going to keep this short and sweet today. We left the marina area and headed up the coast through Malibu and all of the other beach towns. It has been pretty cloudy hear, but the views were nice and at least it was cool. When we got to Morro Bay the camp ground was full… on July 4^th weekend… go figure… The town looked really nice so I looked around and practically accidentally haggled us a really good deal on a good room for the night. After getting settled in we kayaked out in the bay to check out the local bird population, which included a ton of pelicans and gulls. There is a huge rock formation in the bay that has been designated a peregrine falcon sanctuary, but I didn’t see them because there is only two nesting there at any given time due to their territorial nature. While out there we did see a seal and along the docks we saw tons of crabs and starfish. Overall it’s a nice town to hang out, and now I’m going to get some sleep ….

Day 11 – Las Vegas, NV to Los Angeles, CA – July 5th, 2007

Holy crap it’s still hot at 8am in the morning… so Vegas is going to be 116 today… seriously why is this place in the middle of a desert? Driving to Los Angeles involves crossing more large expanses of desert, which are often up hill and want to kill you and your car… Well we are in California at last. Once we hit civilization in CA there was an agricultural inspection stop. The inspector asked us where we were coming from, and then for some reason I was picked out to search my trunk… I think I said “good luck with that” and tried to not laugh because almost everything I own is packed in there. I opened the trunk and after one look at how much crap I have in there it was okay you can go.

Never thought I would be so happy to see a never ending wall of LA smog, which came along with a 30 degree temperature drop. So yeah LA quickly lived up to its tales of smog and traffic. The visibility was maybe a quarter mile if you were lucky and for some reason all 5 lanes on all 7 high ways were full of traffic at 2 in the afternoon. Once we got settled we set off for Beverly Hills/Bel Air and Holly wood. I have never seen so many nice cars… we were sitting at some light and there was a geo metro on my side… but 2 BMWs in front, a Bently and Ferrari behind, and a Lotus flying by in the other direction. After looking at all the ridiculously large houses we walked down Hollywood Blvd and saw all the stars and hand prints in front of the Mann Chinese Theater.

Unfortunately while driving around someone brought to my attention that I had a flat … which made life difficult. After bouncing between gas stations to pump it up I bought some leak sealer hoping to fix the problem till I can get to Folsom. I’m going to keep an eye on it for the rest of the drive.

And for the record… it’s catching on… (If you don’t get it don’t worry)

Day 10 – Grand Canyon to Las Vegas, NV – July 4th, 2007

Leaving the mountains we dropped below 3000 ft altitude for first time since the plains. The land quick turned to desert again… oh the joys… so Vegas is really in the middle of no where and it’s ridiculously hot. It was 110+ and I wanted to roll over and pass out… so did my car… After checking into our hotel I didn’t want to leave the AC safe haven of the casino. Vegas is ridiculously over the top… the whole thing is a big money trap. Anyway I spent my time rocking out those penny slots, and making a whole dollar… the comped’ drinks made it worth the mind numbingly boring lever pulling. On the positive sides we were able to get a really good deal on a dinner, and the blue man group show was amazing. The show is probably one of the coolest combinations of entertainment and musical concert mixed into their own stylistic twist. After the show I decided to play some Texas hold’em to try something a little more challenging. I found out the hard way that you can’t play poker in Vegas unless you really want to commit to the game. My game play is already weak when I’m short stack and I don’t like losing any sizeable amount of my money, which cripples my play. There were a few guys sitting at the table with between five hundred to two thousand dollars sitting on the table, which could basically muscle me out of any hand. Like all Vegas stories… should have quit while I was ahead. To top it off it was overly hot still at midnight… why would anyone want to live in the middle of the desert….

Day 09 – Cedar City, UT to Zion to North Rim of Grand Canyon – July 3rd, 2007

Just a stones throw from Cedar City was Zion another major national park, which was totally different then I was expecting. Zion is the opposite of Bryce in some regards because it is another large canyon, but you are at the bottom of the canyon and all of the trails lead up to the top. We had no where near enough to time to fully explore the area. I really want to revisit this place some time to explore into the Zion narrows as the canyon narrows to just the river, or hike the trails up to the highest peaks (Just not when its ridiculously hot). Inside the park we saw some deer and a lot of other forest wildlife.

Leaving Zion we drove through a historic 1 mile one way tunnel out of the park, which dropped us in the desert on the other side. After crossing the short desert we went up a plateau, which lead to the beginning of the Kaibab National Forest. It was surprising to see the how quickly the landscape could change into dense forest. Everything in the south west is in desperate need of rain and it became evident when we drove through a few miles of a scorched forest. The forest was full of wild life including more deer and in the middle of no where… we were 50 miles from the first thing they called a town and probably 70-80 miles to the first real town.

The Grand Canyon was beyond words and once again we didn’t have enough time to explore it. It’s a weird feeling to be looking down a straight mile… and even more unnerving to sit on the edge. Doing some short hiking out to a point we were able to chill and take in the views for a while. That night before turning in I noticed how many stars you could see… I don’t think I’ve ever seen the starts that bright or that many. It was nice to finally be in a cool climate for a change as well. The entire trip we haven’t seen a single cloud since Indiana, and for that reason it has been constantly hot with a side of extremely sunny.