I've been to California several times now, and even lived here for 6 months when I was in the Marines. The only major city I haven't visited is Sacramento, and while I visited San Fransisco I don't have much to show for it until I return. On my most recent trip I visited the southwestern part of the state and for the first time went to Joshua Tree national park. The densely populated areas of southwestern California have almost an unlimited amount of things to see and do there, so I've only put the most famous parts on my website. When I return to the state again my priority will be to visit some of the central national parks and San Fransisco and the redwoods up north.
California Links
	Los Angeles is one of America's most famous cities, and the second largest in the country after New York. The city is famous for countless things like its tropical weather, great beaches, and all the celebrities and major events that take place here. The two photos above show some of the large buildings in the downtown area, and a traffic jam that I later drove into on the right. Traffic here is rated the worst in America, so if you're visiting here and driving make sure to give yourself plenty of extra time when your planning things for this reason!
	Within Los Angeles is the famous neighborhood of Hollywood which became famous for the production of films in the early 1900s. Hollywood today is a large tourist destination with visitors from all around the world, and even those who have dreams of becoming famous actors themselves someday. Above is a street in Hollywood, and the world famous Hollywood sign built on Mt. Lee.
Of course, there are plenty of things to do in Hollywood, with some obvious things like exploring the downtown city, but I was also surprised to know you can even go hiking up on the Santa Monica mountains or ride horses and follow trails all the way up to the Hollywood sign.
The celebrity walk of fame is famous in Hollywood, and just about any famous celebrity can be found here on Hollywood boulevard. To be honest, the far majority of the names I didn't recognize since this list has been going on for decades before I was born. Above are two famous actors from my generation, Harrison Ford and Johnny Depp.
You'll also find lots of people dressed up as celebrities or wearing strange costumes for your entertainment. Most of these people are of course doing it for donations, but lots are also promotional figures paid by Hollywood. Catwoman on the left seemed to doing promotional work, while the Michael Jackson lookalike was dancing at random places on the street.
I did do some shopping in California, but not in Hollywood. I imagine it to be incredibly expensive even though I didn't give it a chanche and check out prices. If you're interested though, there are plenty of places to go to and some famous designer stores. The photo above was from a shopping mall right off of Hollywood Boulevard, on the left is the famous Hollywood highland center which is a large entertainment complex. Hollywood highland center is home to several famous theaters, restaurants, over 75 shops and includes two night clubs.
More millionaires live in California than any other place in the United States. Honestly unless I was a millionare I couldn't imagine moving to the state because it's so expensive and don't see how it would be worth it. Otherwise if you got the cash, you can find yourself lots of great real estate all over California. These two photos above were both from the Hollywood area, but the richer areas in other cities are pretty similar.
Outside of Hollywood, a large area of museums is located along Wilkshire boulevard. There was only one museum I came to see, but I took the photo of the LA Museum of Art above so you can see how large some of them are. On the right are some restored lamp posts that were taken from throughout the city.
A museum that I actually looked forward to visiting was the Tar Pits of Los Angeles. Back in the prehistoric days, large tar pits occupied what is now Los Angeles and swallowed up all types of wildlife who attempted to trek through it. This probably gave the animals a horrible death, but their remains stayed preserved until they were discovered in the early 1900s by Americans. Above shows a model of a trapped wolly mammoth in the tar pits. The right hand photo is of tar that is actually still bubbling and seeping out the ground.
My understanding is that the majority of the remains have been removed from the tar pits, but still new ones are being discovered and research is on going at this location. Above is one of the research stations, on the right is a model of a lion attacking a giant sloth that once lived in this area. The photos below are some reconstructed animals who were pulled from the pits, a saber toothed tiger on the left and a wolly mammoth.
Finding yourself in a tar pit will probably mean your end, but since this isn't really a threat anymore people in Los Angeles have found other doomsday scenarios to entertain travelers with. The woman on the left was holding a sign announcing judgement day on May 21st. She allowed me to take a photo of the sign but not her, which I found kind of strange since if the world will end in 61 days what would it matter? I visited Los Angeles about 10 days after the devestating earthquake in Japan that destroyed several nuclear reactors and released radiation into the air. Winds travel eastward, and scientists found the slightest traces of radiation from Japan in California, but the guys above seem to believe it will lead to a Walking Dead scenario. I'm not quite sure what they believe the masks would do in a real radiation situation.
An infamous place in California that I had to visit was Compton. Since I used to listen to Dr. Dre and watch Boyz N the hood a lot I had always heard about the dramatic gang wars and hard life going on in this neighborhood. I wasn't really sure what to do here so I just explored a few random neighborhoods and then took off. Above are some people living in Compton.
To be honest, I expected some really horrible houses and buildings in terrible conditions here. While Compton isn't Hollywood, all the houses and gardens seemed to be well taken care of. Had I not heard about Compton before, I would have thought it as just any other neighborhood.
Above is a random street in Compton, and on the right is a thank you for visiting us sign. If you see the lower left, it mentions "building a new Compton", suggesting that the area has seen a major makeover and some serious improvements from its days in the 90s and before.
Surfing is possible in all parts of California, but it's mostly popular in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas since the weather tends to be warmer. Above is a surfer getting ready to take on some of the west coast's large waves, on the right is the beach area of La Jolla.
I visited La Jolla because of their famous seal population. These guys hang out in a protected area and are gauranted to be there. Above is a coastal shot of some waves moving in during a storm, the seals on the right where enjoying a nap until they got pounded by waves.
The species of seals here are called harbor seals, and live in the northern hemisphere from tropics like Mexico all the way north to the Arctic. Millions of harbor seals live around the world, so they are not a threatened species and are pretty common to find. Of course I've seen pelicans all over the world, but not in such large groups as in San Diego. It seems that every few minutes a flight of 20 pelicans or so comes soaring by.
The main beaches in San Diego are located directly west of the city. The water in the Pacific is generally cold year around, so even if its 70 outside during the winter time it will be too cold to swim without a wetsuit. Many bars and other attractions line the streets and beaches here. Above is a rollercoaster and the main section of the beach on the right.
Another coastal area of San Diego is the historic seaport village. This is another area where you can enjoy nightlife, seafood restaurants and other fun activities. There are plenty of historic ships here that you can tour, such as the submarine above and the world war II aircraft carrier. Below is a seafood restaurant extending out into the water, and a colonial sailing ship that can also be toured.
Two last photos from the seaport village, the San Diego courthouse and a man playing music at a small park. While Los Angeles has lots of amazing neighboors and beaches that I haven't yet visited, I still prefer San Diego over LA. The only negative part of San Diego is the homeless people that take up places throughout the city. This is the same in most parts of California and they generally mind their own business.
San Diego is famous for its laid back and liberal atmosphere. Many people know about the smoke shops that are found all over the state. If marijuana is ever legalized for recreational use, people imagine it will first be done in the state of California. The state is also famous for its large population of Asians. I've seen plenty of signs all over the US in English and Spanish of course, but this was my first time seeing one in English, Spanish and Vietnamese.
San Diego has a very large old town area with many buildings preserved. After visiting so many 'old town's in the mid west and south, I expected this to be a small area but instead it was packed with shops, nice restaurants, museums and spanned several blocks. This area was the start of what is now San Diego back when Spaniards occupied the area, above is a church, on the right is one of the shops selling souvenirs.
When visiting some Spanish Missions in Texas, I thought about how much it must have sucked to have to work at a remote outpost in the middle of the desert with temperatures reaching over 100F. The missionaries in San Diego probably had a good life here with the nice weather and easy access to the beaches. Above are two photos of the inside of some of the old town buildings.
A good hike in San Diego is the Mission Trails park within the city. The park borders are pretty small, but it's a great place to hike without having to travel and seemed to be popular with people trying to get a good workout by jogging the steep trails. Within the park is Cowles mountain which reaches a height of nearly 1,600 feet and gives a great view of San Diego's downtown area. Above is a photo of some of the landscape within the park, on the right is a green worm I found while hiking.
The only photos I have from from my visit to San Fransisco are the Golden Gate Bridge and another random shot I took 10 years later. The Golden Gate bridge is a famous icon for both the city as well as the country, and many photographers take some beatiful and creative shots of this landmark. San Fransisco is located along California's northern coast and has one of the country's most unique climates. Temperatuers normally stay close to 65 degrees year around, regardless if it's winter or summer. Since San Fransisco is one of America's most beautiful cities and with its perfect weather, its America's most expensive city to live in. On a flight to China, I took off from San Fransisco and captured the photo on the right, one of the city's tall buildings just barely poking out of the clouds. The city is usually overcast year around except for the fall.
California is famous for its hot weather and snowy mountains. It's the only place in the United States where you can find warm weather and palm trees with snowy mountains just a few hours away during all four seasons. The town on the upper left is a small one located in the desert called Palm Springs. The snowy mountain is somewhere in the area since I took it from a flight just before landing in Los Angeles. This photo was taken in March, so I imagine the snow here won't last much longer, but some of California's peaks reach over 4,000 meters which have snow all year around. This includes Mt. Whitney which is the highest mountain in the continental United States.
California has three major regions that I'd like to visit as far as outdoors and natural beauty go. These include the Giant Redwoods, Yosemite, and the Sequoias which are where these two photos above are from. The redwoods are the tallest trees in the world, while the Sequoias are the largest trees in the world. Above on the left is a photo of the Giant Forest during the winter, part of the Sequoia national Park. Some of these trees are thousands of years old and the largest is on the right, called the General Sherman. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the tree is over 30 feet wide, much wider than the length of an average car to give you some perspective. Since there is nothing bigger than the General Sherman that we know of, the General Sherman is the largest living lifeform on the planet, or as far as we know the universe.
From mountains to deserts, these next to pictures are of Death Valley. This doesn't seem to be popular pick American's but it was always somewhere I wanted to go. Death Valley is the second hottest place on the planet, coming in only after the Sahara desert in northern Africa. The left picture is of some lifeless rock formations that are too hot to support any vegetation. On the right are some giant sand dunes taken in the middle of the summer. When I visited Death Valley, the temperatures were in the mid to upper 120s, or around 50C.
Joshua Tree natioanl park is also a rock climbers paradise, something I need to get more into if I'm going to be attempting Carstensz Pyramid which I hope to do. I didn't try any rock climbing on this trip but there were plenty of others out doing it and taking advantage of some of the sheer walls and other challenges here. I did of course do some hiking which involved like scrambling. These two photos above were taken in different areas of the park, the one on the left is known as skull rock, on the right is another section that had about 30 motorcyclers hanging out.
Before going to Joshua Tree, I had just visited Yemen about two months prior. The young Joshua trees look exactly like young Dragon trees that I saw on Socotra at a first glace. Once these trees mature they look pretty different, and a closer look shows the bark and some other features are also differnet. Still, I figure they must somehow be related, they look and grow similar and both live in hot and dry climates.
	These two photos are from Joshua Tree national park. The caterpillar nests I first thought were white trash bags that someone left outside and got caught up in trees. We got the same species back home in Virginia though that come out in early spring. The lizard on the right was one of many I saw in the park. I feel that almost every page of mine has a lizard photo on it, so it may be one of the most common animals in the world.
These two guys were found right by the seal park in San Diego. I suppose they are kind of cheating since there were so many of them and they are right in the city. I've never seen this many before, but they were still somewhat shy of people.

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