I think this was the coolest beach in Hawaii. One of the nice things about having a friend or relative in the area you’re traveling to is that you get to hear about all the cool places not in the guide books. My cousin told us about a beach in an industrial area of Kauai where there used to be a glass factory. The factory isn’t there any more, but the broken glass has been worn smooth from the ocean over many years. It’s not a very scenic place, but if you go you’ll be looking down anyway. Here’s the view of the beach from a point further out in the water:

As we entered the beach to the right of the picture and at first all we found is really small, sandsize pieces of glass. Most of it is clear or amber and the sand itself is black so it was sort of interesting, but not quite the big deal that my cousin had made it out to be. But as you walk further along the cliffs along the left of the picture the sand and glass pictures get larger and larger and we started to see what he was talking about. The first picture was taken about 3/4th of the way along the little beach where the pieces were pebble sized. Talking to a nearby shopkeeper later in the afternoon I found out that we were there at a lucky time because the last few days had been stormy. Apparently it’s now pretty common to go there and discover the glass is all washed out to sea (after all the factory isn’t there anymore), but the storms tend to wash it back up on the beach.

The beach is in Port Allen in Kauai. If you happen to be nearby any of the locals should be able to give you directions. But other tourists won’t be of any help. It’s not in the guide books.

Within a two minute walk of the beach is an old abandoned Japanese cemetery, rich with photographic opportunities. This was my favorite shot:

This picture was taking back in July, but a comment on a friend’s blog made me remember the greedy chipmunks outside of Rocky Mountain National Park.

I spent about four days on the north shore of Oahu at the beginning of my trip. There was a surfing competition going on that I never actually made it to (it was on hold the whole time I was there because of weather) but I did hang out on the beach one afternoon playing around with my new telescoping lens taking pictures of the surfers. I was impressed by the size of these waves, but these ones are nothing compared to what they surf during the competitions.

Tomorrow morning I’m starting the Kalalau trail along the Na Pali coast.  A couple days ago we did a plane trip around the island and I took this shot.  At the time I thought it was as close to the Kalalau trail as I was going to get.  The trail has been closed because rain in the mountains had made the rivers too high to cross.  A couple days ago it reopened, and barring no major weather events I should be starting off bright and early tomorrow. I’m not sure how far I’ll make it. Miles 6.5 through 8 are right along the cliffs and hopefully those aren’t too washed away to pass.  I know mom and dad are worried about me doing this, but I just keep reminding them that I’m neither stupid nor reckless.  If I think it’s not going to be safe I’ll just turn around and head back.  But if I do make it the whole 11 miles in I’ll have three nights of camping on the beach at the end of this valley:

I’ve had a chance to go through almost all of the photos I’ve taken on the trip so far.  I’m going to attempt to set up some posts for the next couple days so there’ll be more photos appearing here even while I’m on the trail.

You can find out more information about the Kalalau trail here.

If you run a website or are just interested in this sort of stuff check out their development work.  There’s lots of cool wallpapers and of course the very cool theme vSlider for Wordpress.  All of it is up for sale (donation) as they’re trying to finance a trip around the world.

When I get back to LA and have some more time for playing around with this stuff, I’ll be purchasing a spot on their map of the world.

In the mean time, I give you another picture from Hawaii.  This is one of the many red-crested cardinals hanging out all over Oahu.

I’ve finally gotten around to starting to go through some of the pictures I’ve been taking here in Hawaii, so you can be expecting to see some more here soon.  You may have also noticed that I’ve also finally found a picture to replace the generic header that came with this wordpress theme.  That’s a picture of the shadow of our tour van as we went up the Mauna Kea on the big island to visit the observatories.

Both these pictures were taken from a rest stop in Utah. I believe I was on highway 70 at this point, though it might still have been the 15.

I haven’t been to all the states yet, but Utah just might have the best views from their rest stops. They are the sort of views that always make me grateful for the interstate highway system and glad I’m not traveling in a covered wagon across the deserts.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t yet bought a tripod so even though I was there a little later during a great sunset the low light pictures I took didn’t really come out very well. I guess I’ll just have to go back someday… What a shame.

I’ve been getting the chance to play around with my new camera on this trip and hopefully as I continue I’ll be able to up that ratio of 50 decent pictures out of every 2500.

More pictures coming as I get them sorted.

This means that I’ll finally get all the pictures I’ve been taking sorted through and the good ones posted here. For now though I have a couple pictures I took earlier this evening while waiting for the AAA guy to come bring me some gas because I’d run out on Highway 93 in Nevada. Yes, that’s right, my little Prius ran out of gas.

In my defense I don’t think that’s completely true. According to the odometer I should have been able to make it another 80 miles or so. I should have had another 2 gallons left. I think it must have been that the gas was so low that for some reason it wasn’t getting to the engine. I don’t know what the outtake set up is on the gas tank, but that’s my current theory.

At any rate, I got stuck on the side of the highway and luckily had cell phone reception and a free trial version of the AAA “Plus” membership that includes a couple (in this case 5) gallons of gas brought out to you if you’re a dumbass and didn’t fill up in the last gas station for the next 90 miles.

The second picture should give you a good idea of exactly where in the middle of nowhere I was. It was empty pretty much the entire 90 miles between Ash Springs and Vegas. While talking to the dispatcher I had to walk about ten minutes to find a marker that would give a good idea of where I was. Even after walking that far I didn’t actually make it to a sign (though I could see one way off in the distance) but someone pulled over and was able to give me directions to pass on.

So I ate my dinner and took pictures, and now I’ve learned my lesson. Don’t try to go more than 450 miles on one tank even if I technically should have enough gas to do it. Here is my favorite picture of the evening:

At any rate, here’s pictures of the skirt I just finished sewing tatting on to.  Still haven’t actually worn it though.  As you can see, it’s a bit wrinkled and could probably use a washing.

The front:

The back (There is another strip on the right.  It’s hard to see because it’s red):

Close up of the design:

Close up of the pattern for the tatters who want to see how it’s made:

I think the pattern came from the web.  I’ll have to look through my printouts and figure out where I got it.  I liked that pattern a lot and think it’s the one I’ll modify for a tablecloth.

Not very exciting for the non-crafters out there, but since I figure it took me about 70 hours for the whole project I’m happy to have finally finished it.

Ahh, that’s why I’m traveling. What a gorgeous road and I never knew about it.

I headed out of Los Angeles on the 5 freeway on Thursday night and stayed in Taft, CA. In the morning I stumbled upon the Taft Oil Museum while getting lost trying to leave the city in the right direction. It’s a really lovely museum. It focuses more on the history of the town rather than oil specifically, but since the town started as an oil mining town it still makes sense to call it an oil museum. Eventually there will be a replica oil mining camp from the buildings on the ground. Most of those were closed while was there so I just enjoyed wandering around the main museum.

Driving around Taft, the area reminded me of what I suspect Los Angeles must have looked like in it’s early history. Low mountains surrounding a flat plain dotted with oil derricks. The scene above is near the beginning of highway 58, the route I was taking to get from the 5 to highway 1 along the coast. A fabulous road to start off the trip with. And the perfect example of the happy cows of California that are suppose to produce the best cheese. It seemed appropriate to stop and have lunch, (which did include cheese), on the side of the road near these cows. They were all a little concerned about my presence there, but it was fun to watch the young ones playing.

Further along the road, the buffalo couldn’t care less that I’d stopped. They stayed right up next to the fence making sure they got every blade of grass. I’d never seen buffalo up close, so I stuck around and took pictures here too. Anything really to break up the driving some. This was a long day as far as mileage covered since I wanted to skip anything that could be seen on a weekend trip from Los Angeles and I wanted to get up to the Bay area while it was still the weekend and I could visit with friends easily.

I’ve just realized I didn’t upload any pictures of Soda Lake, the whole point of taking this route between the 5 and the 1. I’ll have to add one on a later post, but it’s quite an interesting spot. It’s in the northern top of Carrizo National Monument, an area that is shaped by the San Andreas fault, which runs through it. A long time ago, (a quick google search isn’t giving me any dates, so you’ll have to get vague knowledge), much of what’s now California was covered by the ocean. That ocean shaped the land that we see now, (and the ancient sea life caused the oil deposits).

Carrizo National Monument and Soda Lake is a spot that I think I will have to visit again on a weekend trip from Los Angeles to explore more. For that first day however it was on to Highway 1 and the Big Sur.

Much has been written about the California coastline and the drive along Highway 1.  It was a great drive for the sunset, but, of course, when you driving that winding road it takes quite a while to do. I stopped when it got dark and enjoyed it again in the morning light. I will not even attempt to do it justice here. I’ll just brag about the view outside my window when I woke up:

Below, you can just barely see the spot where I stayed, way off in the distance. It was the furthest curve of the coastline in this picture.

Along the way I listened to the start of Kevin Starr’s history of California as a book on tape. Very interesting focus a mental understanding of the history while driving around the state and focusing a mental picture of what it encompasses physically as well.

It was all along gorgeous roads, but quite a lot of driving for the first day. I enjoyed spending the last two days hanging out with friends in the bay area and am going to be doing the same thing for the next couple days as well. After that heading off north to spend some time in Point Reyes in Marin County. One of my favorite places in the US.

After leaving Flagstaff for second time I headed south. I passed though the little town of Pine which Pam recommended to me for the handmade ice cream and antique stores. Sadly, the ice cream shop was closed on Wednesdays and I’m not really interested in antiques. But I did get some blue cheese and tomatoes and that made for a nice lunch later.

Spent the afternoon at Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, which was very pretty and a nice break from all the driving. I have no especially good pictures uploaded though, so you’ll just have to follow the link to see it. I’m finding I don’t know how to take decent (moving) water pictures with my little point and shoot.

Slept in a little town along the 60. There was much driving involved in these two days. My memory is a bit fuzzy. The next day’s big adventure was a stop in Pietown for an early lunch of peanut butter pie. Quite tasty. Pretty much the rest of the day was spent driving with a short stop to sit in the back on the van and wait for a break in the cars on the road so I could record the narration for my interview with Dr. Gillette.

I’m pretty sure there were also stops along the way for reading and napping. It all meant that I got to the VLA right before sunset when they close. But, of course, that meant I got to take both sunset and sunrise pictures of the telescopes.

The telescopes are amazing. And it’s awesome to just be driving along and then suddenly be driving through them. The array (22 miles in diameter) is split by the road and there are cows and other animals wandering near them. I hung out at the visitor’s viewpoint and watched the sun set then headed out to find a place to stay for the night. The best place that didn’t involve a vast amount of driving was a pullout area with camping tables where I got checked up on by a passing patrolman, but other than that no problems. Next morning I woke up early, sat at the view point again and wrote for a while until the VLA opened for visitors. It was a cold windy morning but the rain didn’t start until after I’d finished wandering around the campus.

The VLA is in the middle of nowhere, (of course, that’s part of why the spot was chosen), but I’d definitely recommend a stop there. It’s a reasonable side trip from Albuquerque, especially if you combine it with Bosque del Apache Natural Wildlife Refuge which I went to next.

The refuge was recommended by Dr. Gillette. It was GORGEOUS.

There’s a 13.5 mile driving loop around a couple of the marshes that I biked around. Took a bit longer than I expected so I finished it in the dark. (The map up at the visitor’s center also claimed the road was paved, which it is very much not, so that slowed me down some too.) It was nice to finally be back on my bike since I think it’d been about 5/6 months since I’ve done any riding. Still I’m ashamed to admit my legs were sore for the rest of the night. 13.5 miles shouldn’t have done that, though I was working against a tough headwind for about half the ride.

After Bosque del Apache I drove on up to Albuquerque. Possibly my favorite day of the trip. Definitely my favorite day of solo-sightseeing.

I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for Albuquerque. It’s just after 3 and I haven’t had lunch yet I may not get around to it until I’m back in San Diego, but I promise flood of posting during the few days I’ll be there.

I love Flagstaff. I love the downtown. I love the museums, the university, the train station, the urban trail system, and smell of the weather in town and view of the mountains. The fact that it’s home to the Lowell Observatory alone would make it a cool town. A few years back I even had a brief flirtation with the idea of moving there.

I only want to make this clear so you understand that when someone called it “big city” and I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to disagree I did not mean to imply anything bad about Flagstaff. It’s a lovely town, but 53,00 in “city” limits and 124,000 in the metro area, does not a “big city” make.

(It reminded me of being in a car going from Boston to Providence and the how driver kept complaining about the awful rush-hour traffic we were stuck in though we never dropped below 40 miles an hour. Silly east coasters, come drive the 405 at 6:00pm some day.)

However Flagstaff was the largest place I’d been to on my trip thus far. Also the coldest. The first night I spent there it dropped to the high teens. I stayed in the Walmart parking lot (first Walmart overnight of the trip! (will explain this to the non-RVers later)), woke up at 5:00am, and after about a half an hour gave up on sleeping anymore. So I climbed into the driver’s seat, apologized to the Waltons for not going in and buying anything after staying in their parking lot, (I usually patronize any store I stay at, even if it’s just to buy a can of soup or some gum), and drove off to the Northern Arizona Museum three and a half hours before it opened just to get the engine warmed up and the heater going.

So if my brother lives in Flagstaff what was I doing in the Walmart parking lot? Well, Elliot only lives in Flagstaff occasionally. He work 8 days straight in Southern Utah at a camp and then spends his 6 days off in Flagstaff, staying in friend’s garage. His rent is two cases of beer a month. (Yes, we’re both pseudo-homeless. Our parents are so proud). I got there on Tuesday, he wasn’t going to get out of the woods, (and turn on his cell phone), until Wednesday, and I had no idea where his friend’s house was. (Turns out it’s about a mile from the Walmart). So I had a chilly first night in Flag. It’s nice to know that I can handle those temperatures if need be, but I was quite happy to get a hold of him the next day and get directions.

Special thanks for the week in Flagstaff go out to Jared, Nick, Paige, Bobby, Pam and Alex for housing and/or entertainment. You’re always welcome to couch space, floor space, van space or whatever I have where ever I am. (Special thanks, btw, to Bobby for introducing me to Kava tea. First tea I’ve found I can drink straight. I bought a box yesterday and I’m loving it.)

Cronologically, my time in Flagstaff is confused since I spent 7 (!) nights there. Most of the time doing things that were lots of fun, but not very exciting to read about. Went to museums, art galleries and presentations at the university, learned how to play ma jiang, (though I found it easier to use what Japanese I remember from high school rather than learn the Chinese names for the pieces), did laundry, recorded Elliot, Pam and Bobby as they jammed on their guitars, and I learned that my brother can sing!

I only took two pictures that I especially like the whole week. Both were taken in Jerome, AZ when Bobby, Pam and I stopped for lunch on a day trip. The first shows Pam’s face clearly so until I get her permission to post it you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you how cool a shot it is.

It wasn’t actually as warm as it looks here. I was just having fun playing with my camera’s built in filters.

I had an excellent burger in Jerome. Absolutely fantastic. Ranked right up there with The Counter in Santa Monica. If you’re a carnivore and you happen to find yourself in Jerome (or more likely, nearby Sedona) then get a burger at the Mile High Grill. Very tasty with good bread, (the importance of which is often overlooked). Sadly, they don’t come smaller than half a pound, but you’ll eat the whole thing anyways.

I left Flag on Tuesday morning and headed south to Montezuma’s Castle National Monument, one of the most well preserved cliff dwellings in the southwest. Not as spectacular as Mesa Verde, but well worth the five bucks and the two hours I spent there. Don’t miss it if you’re nearby and have any interest in history.

When I got back out to my car I had a message from a researcher at the Museum of Northern Arizona who I’d been trying to get a hold of to interview for This Week in Science. So I drove the 50 miles back to Flagstaff, bought a six pack of beer for “rent,” showed up again at Jared’s house and crashed on the couch one more night.

I interviewed Dr. David Gillette the next morning about the Therizinosaur he’d excavated in 2000-2001 and spent most of the rest of the day at a coffee shop in town editing down the interview and writing a narration script to record later. I didn’t drive very far out of town that evening, just enough to lose some of the elevation so it wasn’t super cold that night.

But I am getting ahead of myself again. And all you actually care about are the pictures.

After the Salton Sea I headed up north and east along the 10, stopping just south of Joshua Tree National Park at the George Patton Museum. This was the stop where I actually felt like I was getting settled into the idea of traveling.

As I look back on it the museum sort of symbolizes this trip, and the idea of just going to check out something because it’s there.

I knew it was out there and I’ve passed it a couple times on the way to Joshua Tree. It interested me to find out why it was out there in the middle of the California desert, and I always figured that I would stop at some point. Other than a general interest in history however it’s not something I ever cared particularly enough to bother driving all the way out there to visit. Until now. Now I have the time to spend on random stuff like this. I’m not traveling with anyone so there’s no one else to convince. So I went, and while not a destination it’s an excellent use of 4 bucks and a couple hours.

And then comes the long stretch of I-10 where there’s nothing but desert. All you can do is put on your favorite cd, imagine you’re in the middle of the montage in the movie where the main character is doing some sort of cathartic travel. Imagine the camera paning from her face out the scenery as it rushes by. Be glad that you’re not traveling in a covered wagon where it would have taken you a week to go through what now takes an hour.

Then you’ll get to Blythe, CA. I have no pictures of Blythe. My guide book recommended the many old-timey donut shops in Blythe. It should have been my first hint that perhaps my guide book was old and out of date. I found only one donut shop and had a decent but not particularly special donut there. But they do have a cafe called Steaks and Cakes. Interestingly, it did not appear to serve either steak or cake, but did have some decent chicken strips. Just outside of Blythe was the best sign I’ve seen so far. (left)

Blythe, not a destination. But Quartzsite… ahh Quartzsite.

Most of the year Quartzsite, AZ is a town of about 3,000 but over the summer it swells to almost a million rv’ers from the colder parts of the country. I got there on the Wednesday before thanksgiving so it was still pretty empty but there were a number of people there for the winter that I met while wandering around. It’s definitely a place I want to go back to, especially when I get around to working on a couple audio projects I’ve got rumbling around in my mind. But sadly the timing wasn’t right for a long visit then. It was Thanksgiving weekend, everything was shut down, I didn’t have my bike fixed yet (still hadn’t found a bike shop for a new tire), and most importantly I was still only a week into my trip and was still feeling pretty stircrazy at the idea of staying in the same place for more than one night. But I will be back. (As you can see, we also continued the theme of awesome sunsets. This is was the view from the driver’s seat at spot where I boondocked that night.)

Next day I headed north to Lake Havasu, a great little town in AZ whose main tourist attractions are the lake itself and the London bridge. I got there the day before their big festival of lights, with the official lighting of the bridge and the touristy area around it, (known as “Londontown Land,” I kid you not).

There’s a night-time swimming competition across the “channel” and the winner gets to flip the switch. The best though was the one-man band (called “The Redcoats”) who played Christmas and Beatles music as if they were sea shanties. I recorded some and I’ll try and get it up later.

Two nights in Lake Havasu! First time I stayed two nights in the same place. Largely this was because this is when my back was hurting the worst. It was easiest to just stay put, hang out in the touristy area, read a book and walk around as much as possible to loosen up my back. (Oh, I also finally found a bike shop and got a new tire.)

The next day was one of the best days of the trip. Headed north along the 95 and then old route 66 up to Oatman. Stopped randomly in the middle of the day on the side of the road and read for a while and did a bit of brainstorming on a large project idea that I’ll get around to explaining here eventually. I love traveling on my own and being able to just stop randomly and read or write or just sit and tat for a half an hour.  And it’s a good thing I did, because if I’d traveled further down the road earlier I might have missed the Browne family as they decorated a bush on the side of the road.

Oatman has a tradition of decorating the bushes on the stretch of Route 66 up to their town. For 20 bucks you can pick out your own shrubbery and join in. Take the decorations off after the holidays and you’ll get back 10 bucks of that.

I was driving along on the day after Thanksgiving so I didn’t get to see the road in its complete magistery, though apparently it does get pretty full of Christmas cheer. At the second bush I passed being decorated I had to stop and get the story. And that’s how I met the Browne’s… two daughters, parents, and grandparents who let me ask questions, (as long as I helped with the decorating) and join in on their family tradition. I got a couple suggestions on places to visit on my trip, and both daughters live in New York so hopefully I’ll get together again with them when I make it out there.

And that, Dear Reader, is really what this trip is all about, meeting cool, interesting people. (And eventually I’ll figure out the best way to ask someone if you can interview them after only knowing them for 10 minutes.) 

And burros, this trip is also about burros. Perferrably baby burros surprising young children in cute and photogenic ways.

Oatman is a tourist trap. But it’s an entertaining tourist trap. Wild burros roam the streets and most of the shops sell carrots you can feed them. They have gunfight re-enactments on the streets in “period dress” (read that as “the modern hollywood-based version of generic westernwear of the 19th century”). And more cutesy shops and galleries than you can stuff a town of Saturday-afternoon-Route-66-tourists into.

Touristy, but not to be missed. A lot of the shops are full of your generic Route 66 “tourap” (tourist crap), but there’s also a couple galleries with some very nice artwork. One I would have passed by if not for the recommendation earlier from the Browne’s. It had beautiful oil on sandstone paintings.

From Oatman I continued on old Route 66 through the mountains, thinking of The Grapes of Wrath and imaging what it must have been like to travel that road after the dust bowl.

Well, I was only half thinking such deep, reflective thoughts. I was continuously distracted by the other half of my brain that kept shouting “Oh my god, this is GORGEOUS!” And it was. But I have no pictures for you because pictures, (especially from my little compact camera), wouldn’t be able to do it justice. This was big sky with layers of mountains spread out along the horizon.

If you’re anywhere near there and do not take this road between Oatman and Kingman I will refuse to associate with you ever again. You’re not even allowed to continue reading this blog. If you can’t appreciate scenery like that I have no time for you. (Exceptions given if you’re traveling in a largish RV or a car with doubtful brakes. The hairpin curves on the way back down the mountain are not for you.)

So Kingman… Can’t tell you a whole lot about Kingman. I got in after dark (not hard when the sun sets at 5:30), had a restless night next to a truckstop and in the morning was itching for movement so I drove on even though I’d planned to visit the museum there.

The day was spent on the next stretch of Route 66 between Kingman and Williams. This section you’re allowed to skip. In the winter at least. I want to go back sometime in the summer to check out Havasu Falls, which from all the pictures looks amazing, but in the winter the main draw of this section of Route 66 seems to be The Grand Canyon Caverns. It’s a neat tour, worth the $13 if you’re already there, but by itself not worth the extra time of taking Route 66 over the 40 for this section. Neither has much scenery so you might as well take the faster one. (Yeah, I know, this trip is not about going fast and seeing as much as possible, but it’s also not about getting bored.)

Williams was the last hold-out along old Route 66, so along the main street you find yet more endless 66 references. I spent way too much on a pancake breakfast at a cafe I only later learned is apparently famous for their pies. If only I had known earlier!

The highlight for me was going to the Railroad RV park the morning for a shower. Cost me 5 bucks, which hurt, but the place was run by an older gentleman who’d spent most of the last couple decades living on the land and trapping for a living. So I got to hear stories from a real mountain man and (of course) got a couple more suggestions of places to visit. (All of them cold weather places, so they’ve been added to the list for next year. Or rather, they will be once I find the paper I wrote them down on).

A drive up a nearby mountain turned into a hike about 3/4ths of the way once I decided I didn’t know if my van could make it up the steep dirt road*. The top turned out to be home to all the area’s TV and radio towers, and ironically I got a call from KJAZZ while up there, so apparently I can’t get away from radio even when I head out to the middle of nowhere.

Headed out then to Flagstaff, but I think that’s enough typing for now. I’ll describe Flagstaff and beyond a little later and leave you instead with a picture I forgot to post earlier. Here’s a sample of the dead fish that littered the Salton Sea beaches. Enjoy

*The best description of this road I can come up with is to compare it to the last section of road up Mt. Baldy, CA, with it’s insanely steep hairpin curves. Take that road, make it dirt and only slightly wider than one lane (for both directions). Chop off the sides of the mountain so it’s a sharp drop off the side of the road and add some fallen trees. I met one truck going in the other direction. Thankfully I was on the mountain side of the road then so as we inched past each other I didn’t fall off the mountain. No, they didn’t fall off the mountain either.

So that brings us up to about 1901 when engineers build an canal to irrigate the farm lands of the Imperial Valley with water from the Colorado. It worked great. Except that silt eventually blocked up the canal, and in 1905 when they redirected the Colorado to avoid this blockage floodwaters broke through and filled part of the basin from Lake Cahuilla.

And thus the Salton Sea was born. Today it’s slowly drying up from evaporation, (there’s no outlet for the water so it just keeps getting saltier and saltier), but it’s a fun place to visit. For a short time anyway. I stayed along the south and east coasts, so I missed the “highly” populated areas, but still I was surprised with how little development was there. It reminded me of the midwest, except hotter, with more signs in Spanish, and less people. I spent the day walking around at the Sonny Bono Wildlife Refuge. The beaches along the sea are all made up of the shells of dead coral as you can see in the close-up picture. Also, lots of dead fish.

Of course, I took a lot of sunrise pictures. These are the views of the lake from the campground I stayed at.

The white birds are giant swans. If I remember right they are only around the Salton Sea during the winter, but other birds show up throughout the rest of the year.

I got a campground partly because I wanted a shower after the couple days of 90 degree weather, but mostly because I wanted to slow down and take a break from the traveling. At this point it still hadn’t sunk in yet that I have all this time. Also because of the heat I’d spent less time in Anza-Borrego and at the Salton Sea and felt like I was moving pretty quickly down the road. So I sucked it up and spent the money, ($17, annoying when my daily goal is only $20), and rented myself a small plot of land for the night. I spent the time reading a book and settling into the idea of going slower on this trip.

Reading the book was a nice reminder that this is more than just a road trip, this is my life. A reminder to take advantage of this time to read books, do some writing and work on my own projects. Those things are actually as much of the reason for taking this time off as is seeing the country.

In the week after that I started becoming more and more comfortable with just stopping random places and reading. Read three books that first week, so I think I’m starting to get the hang of the whole slowing down thing.

Today he spent the day with two of his friends messing around on their guitars and I spent the day recording them. Then we proceeded to have vast amounts of fun with playing it backwards and changing the pitch to chipmunk style. Extremely amusing and we weren’t even high. An excellent Saturday afternoon. Tonight we play ma jiang.

But I digress. I wanted to update you all on the first part of my trip now that I’ve had a chance to go through all my pictures. We start with Anza-Borrego State Park in California.

The pictures above and to the right are from Borrego Springs, the town surrounded by Anza-Borrego State Park. The park is the largest state park in CA and I believe it’s the largest state park in the lower 48 states

I had a good chance to spend some time photographing these statues while walking my bike back to my car at the Visitor’s Center after getting a flat. Not quite my idea when I headed out. I’ll just have to go back and do the bike trip around later. I did drive part of the route later and it does look like a nice two hour or so bike ride. Perhaps when I come back it won’t be 95 degrees in the (very little) shade. (In NOVEMBER!)

On a ranger’s suggestion I drove out to Font’s Point. This involved about 4 miles each way of an unpaved, sandy road that had me a bit worried about getting stuck for the night. Then I realized it wouldn’t have mattered. I needed to find a camping spot for the night anyay and if I got stuck I had nowhere to be all of the next day to deal with it. But I made it just fine and was rewarded with an awesome view of the badlands at sunset.

I highly recommend a drive out to Font’s Point if you visit Anza-Borrego.

I also had fun playing with my camera. I think I took about 40 pictures of this Ocotillo plant near Font’s Point. But lucky for you I’ve only posted the best.

One of the nice things about Anza-Borrego is that it’s pretty much open camping. There are a few proper campgrounds, (but at $20 bucks a night I wasn’t going to them), a few primitive campgrounds with just toilets, ($7, more reasonable), and then acres and acres of free boondocking.

This, of course, was my choice for both the nights I was there. Here’s the view at sunrise from the place I stayed the second night:

Driving to this spot in the dark I had unfortunately overshot the place I’d wanted to stay at near some hiking suggested by the ranger. Considering the 90+ degrees of the day before and feeling like I wanted to be on the road again I decided to continue out of the park towards the Salton Sea with plans to come back later.

Tomorrow, I’ll take you out to my visit to the Salton Sea. But now, it’s time to learn how to play ma jiang.

And boy, does my back hurt.

I complained to a coworker a couple months ago about how I’d slept funny and my back hurt, and her response was, “Well duh, of course it does. Look where you’re sleeping!”

But I’d already been living in the van for a couple months without trouble, so I doubt the problem was that they bed was uncomfortable. Many inches of foam, a sheepskin cover and then big fluffy blanket.

No. The problem is that sometimes I just don’t sleep well, regardless of what I’m sleeping on.

Which brings us to this week. This week I rebuilt the bed so as to get more storage space underneath it. Well, ok. Dad rebuilt the bed but I helped.

Last time I was in San Diego there was much remodeling of the van including a extra foam pad to make the bed actually lay somewhat level.

This time I wanted to get rid of the folded down seat that made up half the bed and get more storage space.

So the seat came out and replaced by a complicated support set-up for the bed. I’ll spare you the details of how this came to be, but it took pretty much the whole afternoon to figure it out. Suffice to say that the main support is approximately in the middle of the bed and the arch was cut out so that I can access the space in the back from inside the van. Extra important once I get the bike on the back and won’t be able to open up the back doors much.

Next came the surface of the bed itself, made from a nice piece of birch plywood, (the supports were made from some of the remainder of the original piece).

Looks shiny, doesn’t it? Dad realized that once I was done with the van he’d be getting it back. So the edges are routed and there are three coats of varnish on this beautiful bed. My favorite thing about it is the cutout in the middle of the picture. We put this in there so that the annoying island in the center of the van can actually be of some use. With this cutout of the bed not only can I actually open it up and use the meager storage space, but now I can use it as a chair instead of sitting on the bed all the time.

The old bed was low enough that this wasn’t too big a deal, but now with this island to function as a chair the bed could be raised higher up giving me even more storage space underneath.
I’m also a big fan of the rounded edges. I didn’t measure the old one, but I think this bed is a few inches longer. It’s also a bit more narrow at the front but since this is usually where my feet are it shouldn’t be a problem, and because of the way the board fits around the contours of the van this means the bed isn’t in the way when crawling from the front seats to the back. It wasn’t bad before, but this is even better.

The last step for the bed was a nice new mattress. I’d been using a two inch thick piece that was slowly disintegrating on me. It was replaced by a new solid three inch of foam cut to fit the contours of the board below it.

The new bed will take a night or two of getting used to since I’m now up so much higher. Closer to the windows, which I’m not a fan of, but one other upgrade to the van was new extra-dark tinting on two of the windows. And it’s definitely made up for by all the new storage space.

Today I started filling up all that space. Of course, I don’t have enough room for all my books, (even after spending the last two years getting rid of most of them), but I’ve still managed to pack away under the bed more than I’ll actually read between now and when I come back to San Diego at the end of December.

And yes, of course all of them are completely necessary. I swear. Each and every one.

Tomorrow I finish with packing and some other last minute things then I hit the road on Friday. Hopefully nothing tomorrow takes longer than I expect.