Current location: still in Riverside, CA

On tuesday, I packed up and left Becky's place headed south to San Diego, via I-215, to I-15. It took about 2 hours to get to San Diego, I got there at about 2:30 PM. My first stop was the famous San Diego Zoo. I paid $32 for zoo entrance (regular entrance is $21, but the $32 price includes unlimited bus tours and skyfari. Parking was free. The zoo was completely amazing, and the price of admission was well worth it. In the zoo, the first thing I did was take the bus tour, which takes you on a guided tour of the whole zoo. There were tons and tons of kids throughout the zoo, and on the bus tour, and they were all very well behaved. Zoos are a perfect place for kids, because they love the animals so much, and this makes it easier for them to behave. I feel there are appropriate places to take your kids, and the zoo is a perfect place (art museums are not). The bus tour takes you to most of the zoo (with the exception of the panda exhibit), but its very hard to get photos from the bus, so I couldn't wait to get off and get some photos, since I am photo taking maniac. Some of my favorite photos were of the elephants and rhinoceros, because they came right out for their photos.



I was no more than five feet from the elephants



The rhino was in the moat of its pen, rubbing against the wall to scratch itself. I was close enough to touch (definitely close enough to smell) the rhino.

I also got some good photos of a camel, an Alaskan brown bear, an ent, orangutans, gorillas, and a polar bear.





Of course, the crown jewel of the park is their Giant Panda exhibit, right in the middle of the park. There was a long wait to see the pandas, but they were very visible, so I was lucky, I got a good show of these very rare, very finicky, fickle creatures. I got a few good photos, but unfortunately, my camera batteries ran out before I got to the front of the line (the best views). Damn.

My original intention was to leave the zoo with enough time to get a motel before going to the Padres game. However, I didn't get out of the zoo until about 6:30, not enough time to find a motel before the game. In fact, it took me a while to find Petco Park, so I didn't get to the ticket office until about 7:20, 20 minutes after the game started. I paid $12 to park, and then had to wait in line to buy tickets for about 15 minutes, because there was such a huge walk up business. When I got to the ticket window, I found out the $5 standing room tickets had been sold out, so I bought a $12 seat. When I finally got inside the stadium, it was already the third inning.

Petco is a nice park, built in a former manufacturing district, so it includes some facades of former buildings incorporated into the architecture, very neat. Also, at the entrance, there is a huge waterfall fountain that follows the stairs. For some reason, there was a huge police presence inside and outside the park, definitely a lot more than I've seen at other parks. Amazingly, I recognized some people at the park that I had seen at the Very Large Array in New Mexico a week before. One very weird feature of the park was the bullpens. The home bullpen is in a pen in centerfield, but for some reason, the visitor bullpen is one of those annoying ones on the side of the field in foul territory. In center field there is a huge pavilion, where standing room ticket holders can set up a blanket and watch the game from the grass, very cool. Next to that, there is a wiffle ball field, and it seems they organize a wiffle ball game during the Padres game, with a designated pitcher who is employed by the park, a very very cool feature. The game was exciting, the Padres were playing the Cardinals. The Cards took an early lead, but the Pads mounted a comeback, before ultimately succumbing 4-2.

Here are the photos from the game.

After the game, I figured I would find a motel, either downtown or the outskirts of the city. I drove around, stopped at a couple motels, only to find out there was no vacancy. So I started back out on the highway, on the 5, but here it was very hard to find a motel as well; California apparently doesn't have those blue signs that read Food / Gas / Lodging that alert you what you can get off of the highway, which is just completely awful Get signs! Also, there seemed to be no billboards in this area of California, so the only way I would be able to find a motel would be to drive past an exit, happen to see a few motels off of the exit, drive down to the next exit and turn around, and come back. I did this several times, ultimately stopping at upwards of 18 motels within 60 miles of the ball park, all were booked for some strange reason. Around this time, I ran into some awful, awful traffic, at 11 PM. I was so furious! I wanted to sleep and I also really needed to use the bath room, and I was stuck in this traffic for an hour and a half, only proceeding about 2 miles during this period. The traffic was caused by construction moving all 6 lanes of traffic over to the one carpool lane, all for the purpose of only two construction vehicles that didn't seem to be doing anything.

It was about this time that I decided I really really hate southern California. I was yelling in my car, swearing up a storm. This was the worst traffic of the 12,000 miles of trip up to that point, and to make it worse I was tired and had to shit. Those who know me, just picture me in my car, making a spectacle, banging my water bottle against my steering wheel, and yelling at all the other cars in my way. I decided that all of Southern California, from Chula Vista all the way on up to Malibu should just fall into the ocean. Learn to swim, fuckers. To paraphrase Tool's Ænema, lifting heavily from Bill Hicks, learn to swim / I'll see you down in Arizona Bay. Aargh! I just hate it, the traffic, the people, the attitude. So that is the newest song on the Jon Sheldon Across America soundtrack.

I decided to come up with a top ten list of things I hate about Southern California. Drumroll.



1. Nearly everything



Rimshot. In reality, I did list some things out, but its more like a Jeff Foxworthy thing. You might be driving in Southern California if: there are carpool lanes on the on and off ramp. If the on ramp has three lanes and traffic lights, you might be driving in Southern California. If the exits very infrequently have exit numbers, you might be driving in Southern California. You might be driving in Southern California if: there are 24 hour car pool lanes. You might be driving in Southern California if: there are frequent exit only lanes and frequent merge lanes. If you get stuck in an exit only lane and forced off the highway because you weren't able to merge, you might be driving in Southern California. You might be driving in Southern California if: motorcycles are allowed to weave in and out of traffic, scaring the crap out of drivers. Learn to swim, fuckers. Everyone knows I hated the traffic and driving in Connecticut. In California, any given highway is not any worse than rush hour traffic in southern Connecticut and the New York area, except instead of three major highways, there are about 25, all packed.

Anyway, because I couldn't find any motels, and I realized I was about half an hour from Becky's place, I drove all the way back, hoping she wouldn't be there (she was staying in her old apartment that night), so that I wouldn't scare the crap out of her or wake her up by coming in at 1:30 in the morning when she wasn't expecting me. Luckily, she wasn't.

On wednesday evening, Becky and I went back to LA in the evening to see a Dodgers game. One of the highways was closed, so it took us about 2 hours to get to the game, we got there just on time, and got some really nice seats for $15, $10 to park. The Dodgers were playing the Reds, and again, it was a close interesting game, but the Dodgers lost out in the end 7-6. Dodger Stadium has a bad reputation, but it was pretty nice, especially for an older stadium. Most of the fans sitting around us seemed to be tourists, and not really interested in the game. There were some kind of convection currents in the stadium, so somewhere below us, someone was taking napkins, rolling up all four corners and then letting it up into the air like a kite. The napkins would float up and up into the third deck of the stadium. Pretty neat. Here are the photos.

Thursday I didn't do much. I intended to catch up on my writing, which I had neglected for more than a week. I did do a lot of writing, but I didn't get nearly as caught up as I wanted to.

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.