Norcal Wanderings

April 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Such a long day.

Today we got up nice and early, packed up the camping supplies, although we tossed the tent. I guess Travis had it since he was 8 years old, and it was getting a bit worn. We’ll get a new one before we camp again later this week.

After we packed up, we said farewell to Bryan and Behshad and started our journey to San Francisco in the rain. We were lucky that the rain decided to hold off until after our 3 days of camping, but I fairly certain we wouldn’t even be able to see the Golden Gate Bridge. However, the rain let up a little bit as we were driving, and we were able to see the bridge, although it was pretty grey and foggy. After that we drove around a little bit, hit up Lombard Street for fun, then headed out to Berkeley.

In Berkeley we sat at the Marina for an hour or so, then went to pizza for an early dinner with one of Travis’ college friends before heading out towards Lake Tahoe. The drive to Tahoe was kinda scary because it was nearly freezing and the roads were dark, windy and wet from earlier. We made it in one piece though, and I’m just so happy to be somewhere with warm showers and a real bed.

I have a lot of photos from Napa, San Francisco, Berkeley and driving to Lake Tahoe (rainbows!) but I need to do more post-production first, so….

This is where I’ll be tonight, and that’s all that really matters right now anyway.

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Bird Obsession and Norcal Wrap-up

April 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

So, Lake Tahoe, is awesome. I’m sure it’s primarily because it’s very nice to get a hotel room with a giant jacuzzi tub for only ~$33 per night, which is cheaper than what we were paying for rent in CA (which is the point of our trip). I enjoyed sleeping on a real bed so much, and I’m excited I have another 2 nights here before we head out to Death Valley.

Today we didn’t really do anything super exciting. We’re staying at one of the casinos here, but I’m not a big gambler, so I won about $10 by better on black twice in roulette, then lost some change pushing buttons on the slot machines, and then I gave up. We had much more fun by getting a card for the arcade at the casino across the street where we found our beloved Buzzy Buzzy game we found at the nickel arcade in Bakersfield. Although it costs a whole 20 cents in Tahoe rather than the 10 cents in Bakersfield, it was fun to play again. My best score in Bakersfield was 19 little bee balls into the honey jar (Travis’ and Bryan’s bests were 22), but in Tahoe I got 37 (Travis’ best here was ~32). We found the balls in this machine were easier to scoop up, but less easy to hit in accidentally. You’ll have to play to see what I’m talking about.

Anyway, other than that, we had some Lake Tahoe photo ops for my camera obsession. I tried to take pictures of snowflakes while it was snowing earlier, but they kept melting. Hoping for snow tomorrow so I can try again. But, since we failed at snowflakes, we wandered to the lake to chase geese and take pictures of mountains.

I haven’t had time to piece together any of the pictures I took today while lazying around Lake Tahoe, such as the scary pretzel eating geese or the sunset attempts of the mountains, so I’ll just post some leftover stuff from our Napa/San Francisco/Berkeley journey, plus my recent obsession with photographing birds.

I’m not sure what it is about the birds… I thinks it’s just that they move so fast it’s just really hard to get decent pictures so I get really excited when I do.

But anyway…

Napa leftovers:
Campfire Macro ShotThe bluebird who kept eating our food

San Francisco and Berkeley — I didn’t like any shots I got of the Golden Gate Bridge, because the weather was fairly poor, but Travis said I wasn’t allowed to not post one.
Overcast Golden Gate BridgeShot from the middle of Lombard StreetRobin(?) at the Berkeley MarinaBird at the Berkeley Marina

Driving to Lake Tahoe — before the crazy cold and snow and ice, the rain let up and we saw a weak rainbow off in the distance. I took pictures, but they were all kinda sad. But then — about an hour later as we were passing Sacramento, I saw this beautiful rainbow that was on both sides of the highway (and double rainbow on one side). We only pulled over for a second so I could try to take pictures, so most of my pictures were out of the car window. The photo with the large tree was one I really liked, but was somewhat poor because of shooting out of the car window, so I did some extensive playing in photoshop to make it look cool, although it doesn’t necessarily look real anymore.

Rainbow on the highwayRainbow through a tree

So ya, that’s all for now ~ Travy and I are gonna go play more Buzzy Buzzy; he needs to beat my new high score, plus I need about 300 more tickets to get this awesome pink cow stuffed animal. Tahoe pictures to come tomorrow hopefully!

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New Friends in Lake Tahoe

April 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I had been wondering how Travis and I would cope now that the visiting friends part of our journey is over, and now it’s just us wandering aimlessly — but, we both managed to make new friends in Lake Tahoe!

At our first Lake Tahoe photo attempt, it was snowy over on the mountain side so it was hard to get a clear shot, but there was a goose chasing us around the parking lot, so that was fun. He was following Travis even before we got the pretzels out, but after Travis gave him a snack he chased us for the rest of the time we were there.

My new friends, on the other hand, are actually more friend’s for Cookie (my tuxedo cat) rather than myself. The pink cat, Candee, is the kitty I got in Bakersfield from 170 tickets of Buzzy Buzzy glory. Cupcake, my new pink cow, came from the arcade across the street in Lake Tahoe — we got her from lots of Buzzy Buzzy and my skilled jackpot win on one of those games where you have to stop the light on the “jackpot” button. If we keep it up at this rate we’re going to have a whole animal menagerie in the car by the time we return home.

Travis' New FriendCookie, Candee and Cupcake

So while we’ve clearly spent too much time playing Buzzy Buzzy in the arcades, we also had some time to take pictures (and by ‘we’ I mean me). Travis didn’t enjoy sitting outside in the cold wind while I was taking pictures, so he kept disappearing to the car. But anyway, we sat by the lake around lunchtime one day, then went back for sunset. I also spent some time trying to take pictures of snowflakes with my super macro setup, but they kept melting too fast for me to actually focus on them in time. I think I’d have to try snowflake pictures when it’s closer to freezing outside so it takes them longer to melt.

So, here are the some of the pictures I collected while in this lovely snowy environment — a picture of Travis’ goose friend flying (which also continues my bird photography obsession), picture of the lake, couple macro shots of random plants, and an HDR shot of the lake at sunset (my favorite).

Tomorrow we are moving on towards Death Valley area (or somewhere between here and Death Valley). Hopefully will be lots of fun!

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Mono Lake and Hot Creek Geological Site

April 10, 2009 By

Panorama at Mono Lake

Today we left Lake Tahoe in the morning and began the journey towards Death Valley — we decided we weren’t necessarily arriving at Death Valley today (so we could spend more time being aimless and seeing sites on the road). In the end, drove most of the way to Death Valley (stopped in Bishop, CA), but we stopped at Mono Lake and the Hot Creek Geological Site (near Mammoth). It was cold and snowy/rainy/windy for most of the day, but we had plenty of time for photo ops.
Mono Lake in CaliforniaTufa at Mono LakeMore seagulls than I ever saw at the beachToasty Sandy Ground at Mono LakeRandom Deserted House on the FreewayHot Creek Geological SiteHot Creek Geological Site

Not much to report other than that. Tomorrow we head on to Death Valley wanderings, then Vegas on Sunday.

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On the way to Death Valley

April 12, 2009 By 2 Comments

As we drove to Death Valley from Bishop, CA, we didn’t stop *too* many places. Big stops were Manzanar and Mt. Whitney (both for semi-obvious reasons, perhaps). However, Travis was not that excited by the random ruins at Manzanar, and it was so cloudy we could barely tell which mountain peak was Mount Whitney. I did my best to take pictures of them all as they passed out of the clouds, but until I have my own internet to confirm, I’ll just not post any pictures (right now I’m using Travis’ computer, which is a bit awkward since I don’t have all my programs and photos handy).

But anyway, here is my random photos of Manzanar, which I thought was a nice detour:

So after our wanderings of Manzanar, we visited some site called the Alabama Hills (I think) on the way to Mount Whitney Portal (which we didn’t follow the whole way) — the Alabama Hills were cool, a whole bunch of round~ish rocks. Plus, as we were heading out from there, we saw some wild cows! I was so excited.

After that we headed to Death Valley. I haven’t finished going through all my Death Valley photos yet, because, honestly, it’s a lot of rocks. And sand. And dry stuff. So… I’ll just post a cool picture I took at the campsite — I saw these photos of “star trails” in the sky, and I’ve been wanting to try it out myself when I get to a location where I can actually see stars (last night in Death Valley was the first). So, I decided to try a method of making star trails where I merge the stars from multiple images (74 images) together rather than leave the camera out for 30+ minutes working on the same shot. I might try it a different way next time I have the opportunity (probably Arizona), but last night was a fun experimentation.

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Favorite dry rocks at Death Valley

April 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

So now that I’m in Arizona, I finally have internet to post Death Valley pictures (and Las Vegas or Utah maybe later). Vegas charged for internet (per laptop), so we put it on Travis’ laptop, so I didn’t bother to update blog much because it’s a hassle to transfer everything over to his laptop.

So anyway, here goes on the Death Valley pictures:

Badwater

The first 2 images and the panorama are pictures on the drive in from a high vantage point. Picture #3 is Badwater, which is the lowest point in North America (282ft below sea level). Picture #4 is a sunset from our campsite. I have a lot of other pictures from the day in general — it’s just it’s a lot of different important rocks. #5 was some light painting fun at the campsite. My skills at writing my name backwards in cursive are much stronger than Travis.

Overall, I wish we could have spent more time at (or gone at a different time of day) was the sand dunes there. They were pretty cool, but the sun was directly overhead so the light wasn’t great for cool sand dune pictures. Generally, it was hot (although probably only mid-eighties at the hottest), dry, and at night it was super windy (it kept ruffling the tent at night and it was hard to sleep). It was fun though :)

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The unexcitment of Las Vegas

April 14, 2009 By 2 Comments

I think I was not thrilled by Vegas because a) I’ve been there 3 times before, b) we were in Lake Tahoe (gambling city) last week and c) Vegas is just a more expensive version of Tahoe. We didn’t really do much of anything Vegas-y anyway.

Day 1 we got to our room at the MGM Grand, took our post-Death Valley showers, found dinner at New York New York, and then wandered back up to our room and went to sleep.

Day 2 I got a haircut, then we watched a screener of a proposed show at the MGM Studiowalk and took a survey for fun, ordered room service, and took the monorail 4 stops up the strip and walked back so I could take pictures.

Day 3 we woke up and left for Page, AZ around lunchtime.

Overall, I could have done without stopping here, but oh well. I took pictures, although more out of obligation to my trip logging rather than actually caring about Vegas. Also, I was too lazy to lug a tripod up the street (despite wanting to do night photography pictures), so that limited some of my options since my camera handholding skills are quite poor.

I’m pretty sure the first 2 are outside Paris, #3 is a random slot machine somewhere (I think they frown upon cameras inside casinos, so I was just trying to be discreet and see what I got), #4 is the new “City Center” they are building with hotels and condos (since there aren’t enough hotels in Vegas already), and #5 is just a shot down the strip from the bridge connecting the MGM Grand with New York New York.

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Detours through Utah

April 15, 2009 By 2 Comments

The route our GPS picked from Las Vegas, NV to Page, AZ involved a trip through the southern part of Utah, which was fun. The clock in the car changed itself as we drove into Utah, so we were confused as to how we had lost an hour mid-trip, but then we regained it once we hit Arizona again. It wasn’t really that confusing, but I think we weren’t aware the clock paid attention enough to auto-correct itself.

Anyway, as we entered Utah there were a lot of really nice red rock formations everywhere. After driving by them for awhile wondering how long it would take to get to Arizona, I decided to pull off the road so I could take a few pictures. The path I chose to pull off on was a nice dirt red road that lead up a small hill overlooking some of the red plateaus and crevices in the valley. Once I parked, I got out of the car to look around, and we found someone’s leftovers there (I found that sheep I owed you Leila!). Haha. So it was really nice up there, but super windy and cold so after I thoroughly documented our furry friend we continued on our way.

After that, we were continuing merrily on our way until we ran into Zion National Park, which we probably could have avoided, but since our GPS led us there we decided to buy a National Parks pass and drive through the park (a very expensive toll road indeed). It was fun though:

#1 is the entry road into the park (from where we entered anyway) — they used red colored ash in their roads, so they are a dark red color that matches the rocks. It was starting to rain as we entered the park. #2 and #3 are some of the rock formations driving in — there were a couple weird arch-like formations as we drove through the park; no idea how they got there or if they were significant. #4 is a window from the bridge built in 1930 which goes through the rocks (it’s really narrow and dark, aside from the few windows). #6 is at the “Checkerboard Mesa”, which refers to the grids in the rocks, and #5 is just another shot from the same location. The orange dirt at the bottom is where one of the streams should be, but there was no water in it while we were there.

Overall, Utah was a fun journey. We also stopped at the dam and bridge at Lake Powell in Page, AZ just before sunset, but since we might be stopping there again this morning on our way out I’ll save that stuff for next time. Off to Monument Valley in Arizona (and maybe Utah) today, then driving to Flagstaff, AZ to sleep.

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U-turn for sheep!

April 15, 2009 By 1 Comment

Today we left Page, AZ to go visit Monument Valley in AZ+UT before heading to Flagstaff, AZ. As we left Page, we stopped at the Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell — we were going to take a dam tour, but it got canceled because of high winds so we headed out to Monument Valley. Of course, as we were heading to Monument Valley, it was snowing/raining and we weren’t sure how that would turn out either. However, once we got closer to Utah, the snow stopped and it seemed to be clearing up a little bit.

Then, suddenly, Travis found me some roadside friends!

Why are you watching me eat?

We are so cute!Om nom nomKbai

We had to u-turn so I could chase them up the road. Actually we parked away from them, but they were slowly walking towards me until they noticed my camera clicks, because the sheep munched on his grass and stared at me for a second, then they all wandered away and Travis told me to get back in the car.

Oh, and then there was Monument Valley. Kind-of hazy, but was cool anyway.
Mile 13 across the Utah borderClosed Indian souvenir standDesigns on an Indian souvenir standAnother closed souvenir stand

Tomorrow we hang out in and around Flagstaff, AZ. :) Posted some future stops for the future on my map, although we don’t have a specific time frame yet.

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Arizona Adventures

April 18, 2009 By 2 Comments

Friday we drove down from Flagstaff, AZ through Sedona, then into Cave Creek/Phoenix, AZ where we spent a few days at my aunt and uncle’s place. Yesterday was mostly our Sedona wanderings, but today we went to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, as well as the attached Butterfly Pavilion. Both were pretty nice to wander around.

For my birds and bees… The bumblebee is actually from a Best Western parking lot in Sedona where we parked solely for the purpose of borrowing their free internet during lunch. The yellow butterfly we also found on our wanderings in Sedona (in the outside world). The 2nd and 3rd butterflies were from the Butterfly Pavilion at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, AZ, and the hummingbird was also from the gardens, although he was teasing my by flying everywhere, and it was pretty hard to snag a picture of him.

Here are some pictures of the botanical gardens in general; they had all sorts of cactus, with some integrated glass art from a guy named Dale Chihuly. I thought I wouldn’t like the glass art, because some of the stuff I had seen in pictures looked like random Christmas ornaments thrust upon cacti, but I enjoyed some of the pieces that were a little more discreet.

After that, we had some delicious Travis-made bacon-wrapped filets. Tomorrow we head onwards towards Tuscon, AZ for a short stop, and then to Silver City, New Mexico. We had been planning to work our way northwards through New Mexico and stop in Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, but we had a change in plans which requires us to be in Houston, TX by this Friday, so we’re taking a more direct route across New Mexico and Texas.

Arizona was a fun time though, and of all the places we’ve been so far, I think it’s one of the places I wouldn’t mind living; however, I hear this is the best time of year to visit Arizona (not too hot yet), so I guess I’d have to see how hot it gets in the summer before I could say for certain.

In other news, this guy here makes me want a puppy: (plus a picture of the kitty too)

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