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Tiny Trains
I’m a sucker for miniatures and the Skunk Train Model Museum was pretty awesome although small. SO MUCH DETAIL!
Spent a few days during the holiday weekend traveling up the PCH north of San Francisco. Its part of the state that I don’t spend much time thinking about normally. The landscape was intensely beautiful. The road hugged the edge of the landscape precariously. Hundreds of feet underneath the waves ceaselessly pounded into the rocks.
We spent some time on the beaches and in the forests. The towns up north seemed quiet and lonely. Things just seemed to move slower.
Eventually the road veered off the coast and led us into the redwoods and we rejoined the 101, only to split off again after a few miles onto Avenue of the Giants. The redwoods tower over the small 2 lane road. Some of the trees are wider than the cars.
Finally after 30 miles we got back on the 101 and after a while we arrived in Eureka. Old town had a lot of interesting old buildings but there seemed to be no people on the street, even for a Sunday afternoon.
Next day we went back to Fort Bragg and checked out the Skunk train before heading home to the bay.
2016 sucked, but thank god I had you guys to help me make it. Love you guys, Merry Christmas!
😀
I spent a extraordinary amount of time staying with my parents in Norcal this year. While this was kind of an adjustment for me having lived in LA for the last 15 years by myself, it did give me a good opportunity to reconnect with some old friends my get closer with my family. Also on the plus side, I got a lot of time to explore the surrounding areas and the city.
I love the areas around the north of San Francisco. If I had time I would always try to visit. Something about the trees and the way the cliffs fall into the ocean just instills such a sense of awe when I am there. On windy days, I can feel the cold wind cutting into my face, but its then that I feel the most alive. I took a few trip to Point Reyes National Seashore, a place that bears a stark resemblance the small towns and coastal areas in Scotland, where I grew up.
Drakes Beach, Point Reyes National Sea Shore
Some of the local residents.
Inside the barn at Pierce Point Ranch, Point Reyes.
Not far away from Point Reyes, the Muirwoods National Monument.
Watching the marine layer roll over the bridge, Hippie Tree, Tiburon.
Standing on top of the look out at Battery Rathbone McIndoe
A late night at Battery Spencer.
South of the bridge on the north west corner of SF, Lands End, a ruin in the city.
inside San Francisco, China Town.
Going further down the coast on the PCH, near the Devil’s Slide trail, the coast slowly eroding under a bunker.
Going farther south, towards Santa Cruz. A good place to catch some air.
Natural Bridges State Beach.
A little even further south still, on a trail near Morrow Bay.
Well, time sure does fly when you get older. More than half a year has gone by and I’ve been pretty busy. Now that I have a little bit of down time maybe I can get some blog going.
We decided to do a Death Valley trip at the end of 2015 over winter break. Living in socal I have spent a lot of time in the surrounding deserts, and in terms of awesomeness and scale, Death Valley takes the cake.
After a few hours of driving out of LA, we turned off the highway onto a small dirt road. Following the trail we slowly meandered into the valley. After a while the road turned and the valley opened up below us. I was awestruck by its grandeur. The vista is endless, mountains on both sides seem impossibly far away, tinted blue with haze. The lighting seemed different too, in this desolate and alien landscape, I felt like I was no longer on earth, but maybe a little like Matt Damon trekking across the surface of another planet. The view across the valley was so grand that the camera does it injustice. One has to be here to really experience fully. Since we left a little late, the light was slowly dying. We hurried to our first destination.
The salt-flats and the devils golf course.
We made it into the campsite and setup our shop. Nights in the desert is cold especially in the winter. We huddled around our fire and made beans and chili. Eventually we all got too cold and called it a night.
The next morning started early. I woke up to the view of the shadow of the mountain looming over the campsite. With the sun slowly peeking out behind it, lighting up the valley. Slow and groggy, we broke camp and made for the sand dunes.
The next stop was Ubehebe Crater. By now we are starting to leave the vast expansiveness of the valley and are starting to head for the hills. Around here the clouds slowly gathered and the day became overcast. Looking over the valley from the top of the crater, I felt like I was on the planet of prometheus, looking over a landscape devoid of life. The next part of the trip was the real excursion.
After a few hours of getting shaken around over dirt bumps and rocks, we made it to the race track. The Death Valley landmark made famous by its mysterious moving rocks. It was already getting late during the day and dim lighting made the entire place a little ominous. The grandstand was a dark silhouette jutting out of the pale lake bed, while the clouds hung low and swirled around covering the surrounding mountains in a dull grey mist. The whole place seemed shrouded in mystique, it was easy to see why there are so many theories surrounding these mysterious rocks.
The second night camping was decidedly more rough. We pulled in around midnight because of a slight issue in navigation. By then snow was already starting to fall in the mountains, and we were climbing higher. By the time we reached the camp the wind was howling through the trees and kicking up snow from the ground. Luckily we still had a lot of fire wood left so we set up in the snow. After a while the snow stopped and the clouds cleared to reveal the moon slowly creeping out of the tree line. The fire kept us warm enough for the night but we decided to sleep in the cars that night. Next morning we woke up and saw a slight dusting of snow over everything around us, but as the sun came out, all the snow slowly melted away. After a light breakfast we packed up and continued to on to the last part of the journey.
Coming out of the west side of the valley we were greeted by a vast forest of Joshua trees. On the side of the trail there was an abandoned mine site, with a pretty well stocked and maintained cabin. We explored for a little bit but it was just a day before new years, and we still had a lot of miles left to go before getting back to LA.
Happy 2016! I took some time off to slum around LA in January. Yesterday I visited the LACMA on a good tip from a good friend about this Frank Gehry exhibit that was going on. Unfortunately I could not get into the rain room. While walking through this exhibit it occurred to me that Gehrys buildings are not to everyone’s taste, but sitting there in model form they are even more whimsical and delicate than their finished final forms. I feel like I could see his genius and process through these models before they turned into buildings and had to be bogged down by regulations and bureaucracy.
What if Frank Gehry was a miniature diorama builder?
