Mountains, Mountains and More Mountains: California

October 31, 2017

Mountains, Mountains and More Mountains: California

I'm backtracking a little bit.

Everything over the past few weeks have been a whirlwind though, with Hurricane Irma, starting my new job, Fantasyfest and our planned trip to Russia. So, I'm just now getting around to going through my photos from California. But, it doesn't seem fair to keep them to myself, so here we go.

While everyone in Florida was camped out waiting for things to go back to normal after Irma, Vlad and I decided to hop on a plane, as we are wont to do, and go to California. I had never been. In fact, I had never been anywhere out west. Africa, yes. Europe, yes. South America, yes. But, not the west coast. Until now.

It was about time though, because it was beautiful.

We flew into LA and, thanks to Vlad's connections, we had a place to stay there with a friend of a friend, who graciously opened his home to us. Bonus: we also got a motorcycle to borrow there, which made Vlad such a happy boy.

From the day we arrived in LA we set off on this massive Triumph motorcycle that had more power than a car, and we started tackling the mountains.

The famous Mulholland Hwy (which I only know about from movies)

We went up to Topanga (now I know where the name Topanga from Boy Meets World comes from)

I tried to get one good picture out of there, but the helmet hair was not working for me.

Here we go!

Then to Paramount Ranch, where they film cowboy movies.

Somehow, I felt like the motorcycle fit in with this place

And on to Santa Monica

Then, we decided that wasn't enough for one day, and we drove up to Big Bear Lake to go stay in a mountain cabin for the night.

'This was all in one day?' you might ask. Yes. And nearly every day we were there, we were on the motorcycle this much. By the end of our trip my butt had absolutely no feeling in it from sitting on the back of that thing for so long. On this particular day, when we finally got to Big Bear Lake, at an elevation of about 7000 feet, my hands and my feet were numb from the cold and I ran into the cabin rental place begging them for a cabin with a hot tub. Not only did we get the hot tub, we also had a wood fireplace, so I would say it was worth it.

The road to Big Bear Lake

The next day, driving back from Big Bear Lake, we decided why not go to San Diego while we're out here? So we did.

So we were thinking that San Diego is a little like Key West (but of course as a big city, not a little island). It had a very relaxed vibe there that was surprising for a city of that size. Later we decided to go to the huge Navy maritime museum there and we found this little surprise:

This same statue used to be in downtown Key West! They moved it, and we didn't know where it went to, until now.

The Navy is really big in San Diego, so not just did we go to the Navy museum, we also saw Navy helicopters, ships, submarines and jet engines there. It's cool if you're into that kind of thing (Vlad is). But San Diego also had a pretty cool bar scene. Not too crazy like Key West can be, but a really chill night life where it's fun to go bar hopping. Plus we had friends there to show us the good places to go.

Of course, San Diego was not the end for us. We were trying to tackle the whole state! (Not really, but it felt like it) There is so much to see in just Southern California. From there we headed back towards LA and went to see Santa Barbara.

This was really important to Vlad because apparently there used to be a really famous soap opera called Santa Barbara, that was really only famous in Russia. Anyways, he had to go there (and let his grandfather know he went as well) even though everyone we asked in Santa Barbara had never heard of this show. 😂😂😂

It really was beautiful though, and they had sea lions!

And we caught an amazing sunset there

What else could we possibly have seen in the 5 days we were there? Well, the last day was actually my favorite day. We planned to go to Red Rock Canyon Park, where they have rock formation that look like castles, and we thought we found a shortcut going through the Angeles National Forest. Little did we know, our "shortcut" was an arduous trek through mountains that were, literally, in the clouds. Not only was it FREEZING, but it was not shorter at all. It was a winding road you had to inch through because you couldn't see 50 ft in front of you. It was great though, and I froze my hands off again to take pictures the whole way through.

I was loving the crazy different plant life. Living on the East Coast we don't have anything like it, and it was interesting to see the cactuses mixed in with forest life. When I saw the rocks jutting out from the mountains, my inner child came out, thinking about how my dad used to take us on our "geology missions" as a kid. In the rocks you could see where the different kinds of stone came together in distinct lines and only guess how they happened that way.

Finally we made it out of those mountains after about 2.5 hrs of winding road and nearly freezing our butts off. We found this place, Grizzly Cafe, that looked like it was on an Indian reservation, and filled up on hot cocoa and warm soup.

Onward we went!