First few days in Cali...

So far...

Day 1 (Wednesday)... I flew into LAX. I had reserved a car from ACE Rent A Car - never use them. First of all, in LA, they make you take the Holiday Inn shuttle to the Holiday Inn instead of picking you up at the airport themselves. Then they pick you up at the Holiday Inn. From the time I picked up my luggage, to the time I was at the rental car office was a whole hour. They are 2 miles from the airport. Then it took ANOTHER hour to actually be in a car. Never use ACE Rent A Car out of LA. Horrible. Anyway, I drove to Joshua Tree National Park once I finally got out of LA. Picked a campsite... then ended up running back to into town to buy gas and water. There is no running water in Joshua Tree National Park. I also found out that the roads were just paved 2 years ago. I suppose not bad when you consider that the park just opened as a national park in 1994. I tried to get my campstove to work... but it turns out that general Coleman Camp Fuel doesn't work. I could get a huge flame but not a regular blue flame for cooking. So, peanut butter sandwich. Decided I'd find the RIGHT fuel the next day. The interesting thing about this campsite is that it is about an inch of sand on top of rock, so I couldn't stake in the tent. And it was windy. I put rocks on the straps you put the stakes through, but it still blew away. Chased down the tent. Then decided to put the rocks IN the tent. That worked.

Day 2 (Thursday)... Woke up early and did a lot of exploring the park. I drove up Keys View Road. Then up to Oasis Visitor Center and the Oasis of Mara. Drove down Pinto Basin Road to the Cholla Cactus Garden and Octillo Patch. Then to Arch Rock and Skull Rock. Then I drove back into Joshua Tree. I went to a cool outdoors store called Nomad Ventures and they had the White Gasoline I needed for my camp stove. Yay! If you're ever in the area, check them out, very helpful. They suggested I go to the Crossroads Cafe for lunch. Well worth it - amazing burger, AND they make their own amazing salsa. Then I went back into the park and checked out the Hidden Valley Trails and Barker Dam. Then I rested in my air conditioned car for about 45 minutes before deciding to hike up they Ryan Mountain Trail. That hike was awesome. I go to the top and there was another couple, about my age, up there... I asked them to take my picture. Turns out the guy is a professional photographer. Random. I took their picture too with his Nikon D700 with all kinds of fancy features and extras... ohhh... When I got back to my campsite I made my first meal on my cook-stove. Worked perfectly. :) Then another nights sleep... The funniest thing about the day was people complaining about the horrible humidity. It was 16% humidity. Is it ever less than 16% humidity in Minnesota?

Day 3 (Friday)... Up and made breakfast - eggs & sausages on my cook stove. Then off too drive to San Diego. I took the senic route which took awhile. The beginning of the drive I was dissapointed by the "senic route" but then as I got up into the mountians it was awesome. Not many pictures because there were very few if any places to pull off. There are pictures from one pull off. When I got to San Diego the rental car company shuttle brought me to the hotel. This hotel is less than 6 months old and beautiful. I took my first shower since Tuesday. :) Then I checked into the conference. Then I decided to go out to Coronado Island for the evening. I had dinner at a nice Mexican Resturant that reminded me of actually being in Mexico. I had hoped for a beautiful sunset... but the clouds rolled in... which seems to be normal here. Oh well, maybe another night. Now I'm back at the hotel... conference starts tomorrow at 1pm, not sure what I'll do in the morning.

Maybe I'll get pictures up by tomorrow. Working on getting them all on the computer first, then have to wort through which ones will go online. Fun fun.