Blogs from California, United States, North America - page 1030

We had our first look at death valley in the morning! It really is an amazing place for a desert. Canyons have been formed from the ice age and further shaped by flash flooding. There are multiple rock formations out here, limestone, marble, sand, salt, granite and many different forms of animal life. After walking through “mosaic” canyon we took a tour at Scotty’s castle. The irony in this is that this 2 million dollar castle was built pretty well in the middle of nowhere by a wealthy millionaire who was duping into the desert by a conman (Scotty) who clamed to have a hugely successful goldmine at his feet. Well the castle has now become a national monument and the national park gives tours of the castle and underground tunnel system. We were well impressed ... read more

Wow, I'm really getting to like this blogging thing. I write things down. You read them. It's great for me. But before you decide that you've been jipped and this blog isn't worth subscribing to, I'll keep this brief. I know, I know...Frazier Park is not as exciting a destination as Tokyo or Bangkok. I hope these entries pick up speed a bit once I'm abroad. If you want to leave me a voicemail once I'm gone (which I would love for each and every one of you to do at some point) please do these things: *1. Call 1.888.579.0208 *2. Press the star button *3. Press 2 *4. Enter my account number: 2283000177 *5. Press # and leave me a message! It should be pretty easy to do. I can check this voicemail while I ... read more

Planning, Planning Planning I'm not entirely sure how it all happened, but I know that I have about 6 plane tickets and a bottle of malaria vaccination pills in my possession. Only three weeks until Mom and Dad drop me and Dallas off at LAX and we load the plane to Tokyo. Tokyo!? About two months ago I ran into Dallas at Hume Lake and we were both talking about travel plans that were in the works. I think Dallas was really serious about these plans, but I was just sort of toying with it at the time. He mentioned that we should meet up in Thailand and before I knew it, we were traveling together for four months. I found a sweet deal on tickets at Airtreks and they slipped in the pesky little catch ... read more

My sister had given me some flu pills and boy did they make me sleep. In the morning I felt rather groggy and stumbled the LA streets in search of a phone card so I could touch base with my friend Diane in LA. My sister found a church about 20 minutes drive from the hostel so we cruised on over, and got there fairly late to hear a great sermon and meet some LA people who turned out to be quite friendly, considering the pastor kept reminding all that LA is not a friendly city (which apparently is true for most people). So I guess the sermon paid off! We went down to the Santa Monica pier in the afternoon and walked around. LA was hot! So far in good old Cali we have not ... read more

Well we spent a morning sorting out the trips we wanted nto do while in San Francisco and booked a Greyhound for the next leg of our trip - Greyhound to to Santa Cruz, then hire car to LA, camping on the way. Our first trip was a tour of San Francisco itself with a youngish guy called Dylan - Welsh father who liked Dylan Thomas and Bob Dylan. He pointed out all the sights to us - took us to Haight Ashbury (again) - and past the Grateful Dead House - now a yuppified des res. We went over the Golden gate bridge to the John Muir Redwood park. We had about an hour and a half to wander round it - the trees are big - no photos cos they just don't fit in ... read more