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After our trip in Yosemite, we opted to go see some of the beautiful lakes here on the way to San Francisco. Our route back to the coast as you can see from the map above involved leaving from Yosemite (A), heading over to the tufa-filled Mono Lake just east of the park (B), taking an unplanned trip down to the small mountain town of Mammoth Lakes (C), then heading back up north on the scenic highway 395 with a quick stop in the ghost town of Bodie (D), driving up to Lake Tahoe in California and Nevada (E), cutting over and starting to head back down the state along a major interstate for a change, turning off and heading west towards the coast through gorgeous wine country and gentle rolling hills to arrive south of Big Sur (F), and then heading north along the coast through the spectacular cliffs of Big Sur to Monterey where we spent our first night upon arrival here (G).

With all that said, let’s take a look at the amazing scenery along the way and the unexpected twists and turns that life brought us.

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Tags: California, Camping, Car repairs, Desert, Lake Tahoe, Mono Lake, Mountains, Ocean, Wheat fields

After our time camping, hiking, and exploring Sequoia NP and Kings Canyon NP, we headed out to go resupply our food stores, spend a night in a hotel in Fresno (comfy beds and warm showers! woohoo!), and then head on up to one of the nation’s first and easily one of its most famous national parks: Yosemite.

This park is known for is spectacular glacier-carved valley and unbelievable views. Would it live up to the hype? Let’s see!

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Tags: Deer, French friends, Timelapse, Waterfalls, Yosemite

Sitting right on top of Sequoia National Park with all its mondo huge trees is a lesser known park called Kings Canyon National Park. What’s there? Kings? Canyons? I dunno… but since it’s right there, we might as well go check it out! Turns out the place was unbelievably awesome, far exceeding my almost non-existent expectations.

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Tags: California, Forest fires, French friends, Kings Canyon, National Parks, Waterfall jumping

I’ve been wanting to travel more with people. After the trip to Death Valley with an Aussie friend I’d made at the hostel, I wound up meeting a group of French guys also at the hostel who were also about to make the trek from Los Angeles to San Francisco as well. We all talked a bit and next thing you know, I had 3 more people coming with me to start this next leg of the trip up to Alaska!

and so with three fun french-speaking travelers, off we went to go check out first hand some of the most gorgeous parks on this side of the country! First stop, the mondo huge trees of Sequoia National Park!

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Tags: Bears, California, French friends, National Parks, Redwood, Sequoias, Trees

After buckling down and going into a nearly week-long lockdown of reintegrating back into civilized life, researching timelapse stuff, and prepping for my trip up to Alaska, enjoying having as much hot water available at any time as I want without having to carry water up a mountain or boil it in a pot to heat it up, having ready access to juicy electricity and warm showers, I neared the end of the couple of days I’d reserved here at this backpacker’s hostel here in LA and although I could of course stay here longer, my intuition was telling me to be ready to go and to not book more days.  Okay! (I’ve learned to listen because it always leads me to amazing places in the most incredible ways.) 🙂 Now I’d been wanting to go to Death Valley, the lowest, hottest, and driest place in the US, and home to the Racetrack Playa (pictured above) which was on my bucket list, but the extreme heat there (~120 degrees this time of the year) warded me off. Nevertheless, the excitement kicked in and alright! Let’s do this!! 🙂

I usually travel alone since I like being able to keep to my own schedule without having anyone waiting on me, but this time I had a friend I’d made here at the hostel come join me, and it worked out so well for both of us. He wanted to make it to DV after hearing about it in Las Vegas and I wanted to save some money on gas. 😉 A win/win! I’m starting to like traveling with others. And so with a new friend by my side, off we drove into the scorching summer desert!

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Tags: Camping, Craters, Death Valley, Desert, Heat, Mountains, National Parks, Self-portraits, Startrails, Timelapse, Yucca trees

After the 6 day camping trip alongside a river, I went back to a nearby location and spent 30 days camping on the side of the mountain in the forest. The video above is a compilation of still photos and moving videos that I put together. In fact, I’ve had SO much fun creating that video and learning how to do more of it, that I haven’t been interested in investing the time and energy in publishing a full-out blog post on the 30 day trip.

With that said, I’ve been really getting into video lately. As illustrated above, it’s amazing how much more depth you get from a moving photo versus a still photo! I’d also like to use my specialized DSLR lenses jfor video so that I can more easily shoot wide angle, telephoto, macro, fisheye, and low depth of field footage with higher video quality and dynamic range compared to what I get with my handheld HD camcorder. Time to upgrade from the 1D which has served me so well up to now! Speaking of upgrading to a nicer camera, I could also use the upgrade for significant improvements in battery life, low light high ISO performance, and long exposure capabilities, all of which I’ll need since I’m also getting into shooting time-lapse videos. It’s videos like this that have really inspired me to getting into time-lapse:

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Tags: Alaska, California, Time-lapse, Video

Sometimes life tosses you random unexpected fun things to do, things that aren’t on your bucket list, but when the opportunity falls right into your lap, you eagerly go for it! 😀

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Tags: Drew Carey, Game Shows, Hollywood, The Price is Right, TV

June 11-16, 2010. A solid 6-day, 5-night camping trip into the Los Padres National Forest, the longest time thus far I’d consecutively spent camping. Time to go spend some time in nature, more than the 3 days at most I’d done previously.

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Tags: Beach, Bugs, Camping, Los Padres National Forest, Mountains, River, Sespe, Subaru Outback

Parking Area, Start of Hiking Trail

Hollywood Sign

So while driving around LA to check out different replacement vehicles (I’ve been looking into both RV’s and Subaru Outbacks), I’ve had the opportunity to see lots of different areas of town. Los Angeles is all over the place! One of the cars I went to go see was in Hollywood and since I had some extra time in the area, I drove through some of the Hollywood fanfare and made my way towards Griffith Park, home of the famous hollywood sign.

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Tags: California, Hiking, Hollywood sign

So one of my favorite bands, Here II Here, is currently on tour and were also headed to the Los Angeles area. I was stoked to go see them, especially since some of my friends were coming up from Arizona to come see them as well.

They were headed to a small town called Ojai (pronounced oh hi). It’s about 2 hours away from LA and has a number of spiritual communities and centers in it. As soon as I drove into town with my friends, I could FEEL the energy of this place and the way it resonated with my body was unlike anything I’d felt before. It felt really GOOD!

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Tags: Here II Here, Krishnamurti, Ojai, Orange groves

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Blogging about the journey as I follow my heart, listen to my intuition, and fully embrace life as it unfolds, to the very best of my ability. :)

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