Current location: Riverside, CA, N 33 56.624', W 117 18.094' elev. 1501 ft.

On thursday morning, I got up and went to lunch with Jim and Rachel in the Bellagio. After lunch, we gambled for a short while, and I gave some of my winnings back to the casino, but I kept the major share of it. Since I pretty much lost every hand I played, I came to the conclusion my 24 hour period of luck had definitely run out. We then went to the art museum inside the Bellagio, where they are currently showing a collection of impressionist paintings, including Renoirs, Monets and Van Goghs. After the museum, I said my goodbyes to Jim and Rachel, and I was off, headed south on the I-15 towards LA, to visit my friend Becky.

I met up with Becky at about 7 PM and we had some dinner and caught up. On friday while Becky was at work, I did some laundry, bills and other chores to catch myself up. Saturday, we decided to do LA and the western area of the city a bit. The traffic was bad, but not terrible. It took us about an hour to get to downtown LA. The first stop was the La Brea Tar Pits. The pits are a very interesting site, these huge, archeological treasures right in the middle of downtown Los Angeles. The pits smell terrible. They are filled with liquid asphalt, naturally occurring and bubbling out of the earth, but they are also filled with thousands of years of dead and decaying animals who fell into the pits and got stuck, so the smell, if you can picture it: brand new asphalt road combined with the stench of decay.



One of the most interesting parts of the pits was the live archeological dig, where scientists are down in the pit, just clearing out tar a little bit at a time and uncovering huge amounts of bones and fossils.



Rest of the photos here

Los Angeles was really hot that day, in the high 90s or low 100s, and humid, enough to sweat standing still, and I hate sweating, but I was sweating all day. Our next stop was Hollywood. We parked and walked around on Hollywood Boulevard, to the Grauman's Chinese Theater, with all the cement imprints out front, and of course, all the stars on the sidewalk up and down the boulevard. I got some photos of the theater, but pretty much forgot to take photos the rest of the time we were there, so I think I'll have to go back on my way out of the area to get some more photos. I was surprised to find out that Hollywood and the boulevard are relatively small, especially when compared to similar areas in New York City. It was just a little unsettling since it seems so grand in movies and on TV. The tourist area is a strange contrast with an upscale mall and a very dirty grimy sidewalk and tourist trap shops. I did see a few movie stars out front of the theater: Elvis, Sponge Bob, Darth Vader, Elmo, Chucky, and Captain Jack Sparrow. I felt really bad for these people dressed up in heavy costumes in the heat. Somehow, we missed seeing the Hollywood sign.

After Hollywood, we drove west into the Santa Monica mountains, through the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and Topanga State Park, to the coast. We came out of the mountains in Malibu, near Pepperdine University and right on the Pacific Coast Highway. We stopped briefly at a park on a cliff above the ocean and took some photos, the views were incredible, in spite of the smog surrounding everything. After the park, we drove south along the coast on the PCH, down to Santa Monica, seeing beautiful cliffside homes, beach side homes and plenty of beautiful ocean views.

Here are the photos. Keep your ugly goldbrickin' ass out of my beach community, Lebowksi.

On the way back to Becky's we stopped at Ikea to do some shopping for her new apartment, and then she talked me into Hooters for dinner :). Sunday was Becky's birthday so we just relaxed part of the day, she moved some more of her apartment items, and then two of her cool work friends and I took her out to dinner to celebrate, and we all had a very excellent time.

Monday, Becky went to work, and I was on my way to Joshua Tree National Park east via California 60. The journey to Joshua Tree took me through Palm Springs, a resort and golf area. I had heard there were a few wind turbines in Palm Springs, for electricity, but I was astounded to see thousands of the turbines, completely surrounding the city, just spinning and spinning, rows upon rows.

Joshua Tree is an amazing place. There were not too many people there that day, it was very hot, probably into the 110s Fahrenheit. So I was sort of by myself, in the middle of this crazy desert, with lots of volcanic rock and thousands of beautiful Joshua trees. There were some very cool formations, including one at the end called Skull Rock.





Here are the rest of the photos.