Yosemite

Hi everyone,

Finally got off my bum, and am updating my blog. The last week in LA we didn't really get up to much. I had to do a bit of advertising stuff for Paul, and that took a lot of time. We said farewell to our homeschool friends which was a bit sad. I really started to like everyone there. On the last weekend we went to a really cool science museum. Forgot the camera so no pics, but some of the hands on exhibits were great. They even had a little set up for making time lapse animations, with plastic animals. Very cool. We watched a 4D movie(3D with smoke machines, smells and special lighting effects) about dinosaurs which also very cool, even if a little bit scary for the kids. The dinosaurs really seemed to come out.

Getting out of the house in Hintington beach was painful. As usual I totally underestimated the amount of time that everything would take. By a factor of 5 I reckon. So I was totally frantic by the end, rushing around trying to extract all of our stuff that had gotten mixed up with their stuff. Then, as I got into the car to drive away a message on the dashboard said that the boot door wasn't closed properly. So I got out, and reopened it to close it right, and all of my groceries fell out. Two bottles of dressing broke on the floor, with glass everywhere, honey mustard all splashed over my leg. So we didn't end up leaving until about 11:00, after I'd really commited myself to leaving early. So off we went to Yosemite. I was very excited.

And I should have been because Yosemite was just amazing. Massive granite oucrops, and vast pine forests. There was a huge valley with the towering granite on either side, and waterfalls dropping over the sides. Heres a couple of the hundreds of pics that I took.

We saw heaps of wild life too, heres a coyote and some deer that we saw.

Luckily we didn't see any bears. There were heaps of warnings about how they could bend back your car door just to get at a chocolate bar wrapper. I did kind of freak out a little bit, but I decided that they must be hibernating, being winter. On the first day when I was unloading the car, by myself, in the dark, in the middle of a pine forest, my heart was beating so hard I swear I could hear it. But then on the last day, we were all inside eating breakfast, and the car alarm went off. I went out, and it looked like there were bear pawprints on the car. Very freaky. This is the house that we stayed in.

We also saw some of the largest trees in the world. Giant sequoias. WOW! It was through one of these trees that they made the car tunnel. But that tree fell over in the 60's and they haven't done it again, because they're trying to look after the trees. Apparently a lot of them are falling over because they have very shallow roots, and all the tourists damage them by walking around the trees. They have set paths now that you're not meant to go off, although heaps of idiots were. Grrrr. Also, they really need wild fires to help keep the other trees down so that can get the right amount of sunshine, and because people have been putting out any fires for the last 100 years, the popluation of these trees have been dwindling. So they're just starting doing controlled burns to help with this. You can see the burnt bit at the bottom. Those little specks, also at the bottom, are the kids (you might need to enlarge it). Thats how huge these trees were. This one was over 3000 years old.

Its also a very popular place for rock climbing. Theres a famous climb that people do here, that take 3 days, and they sleep on the rock face. Eeeek. This is Lindsay ahving a go.

Good Luck!

So now we're in San Francisco. I think I'll really like it here. We're very much in the thick of it here. In a nice little apartment with in walking distance to everything. We went to Alcatraz yesterday. It was really interesting, but kind of in a state of disrepair. I don't think they get so much money from the government for toursim in the same way that Australia does. There was a bit of a drive to get money from visitors to save the rock. It was still really good though. We did an audio tour that told/showed us where those guys dug around the side of an airvent with their spoons to escape. Nobody knows what happened to them. Mostly they think they drowned in the trecherous seas around the island. Yet again, I forgot the camera.

The other day Ellery was telling me that she'd rather go to Jail than pay a fine, because that way she gets to keep her money. After our visit to Alcatraz yesterday, shes changed her mind.

Well, I need to go and buy some food, we've got next to nothing here right now, and I really need to find a supermarket. I'm a bit scared to drive to one, because I don't think there will be parking. Not around here anyway. But I've got to buy too much to be able walk to one. I need a wheel barrow or something.

Anyway, hope all is well back in Aus, cheers

from Nic