Sequoia National Forest!

The past week was mostly uneventful. I did, however finally see Avatar! I really enjoyed it. It actually ended up being a week-long project because I watched the first half one night, had to work late the next night and then went to Santa Monica to meet Ryan & friends on Wednesday so I didn't get a chance to finish it until Thursday! It was great though, I agree very much it was like Pocahontas, but still worth seeing. And working late ended up not being to bad either because a co-worker took me out to dinner at a micro-brewery with Chicago-style pizza! YUM!
Santa Monica was great though because it was finally a clear day and I got a few neat sunset pictures.


Well for my last weekend in Los Angeles, I certainly did not end up spending much time in LA itself! When I was a kid, my parents took me to the Muir Forest to see Redwoods (which I had actually thought were Sequoias until I was corrected recently), but it inspired me to go to the Sequoia National Forest!

Friday I drove down and stayed at a hotel in Vasalia, which was a cute little town and saw Despicable Me. It was FANTASTIC by the way, I highly recommend it. Then Saturday morning I drove the remaining distance to the National Park. It was actually pretty neat, I didn't realize that I actually went from the valley all the way to one of the peaks (Moro Rock), which is the same distance as the Grand Canyon. This is Moro Rock from the distance.. (yeah, the big one)

And these are a few entering in the area the Sequoia's grow (at a higher altitude)




and then from climbing Moro Rock itself.

All in all, it was quite a heck of a hike. It is listed as roughly 300 steps, but they were big ones and the entire way the path is winding through the massive rock. Not to mention this was the hottest weekend in California so far this summer...it was worth it for the view though!


On the way to Moro Rock, I saw a really neat toppled tree, which presented a good opportunity to show just the scale of the trees that we are dealing with:



My car is little, but not that little!
After hiking Moro Rock I wanted to see some of the more famous trees, namely one that was carved into a tunnel:

A group of 6 very big ones clustered together:


And the General Sherman tree, which is the largest in terms of volume and weight in the world! There are a few trees taller and one tree bigger in width, but they are all in California to my knowledge in various areas.

Nearby:


Oh yeah, and there was a cute little black bear hanging out by the giant tree! He was just chillin and looking for some bugs...

I wish I could say that there was more to say, but that is really it in terms of checking things out! And I think the pictures speak for themselves. It was a great way to spend the weekend. It certainly gave me a chance to step back from the world and everything going on in life and relax with nature for a while. I think this would be a place that would be fantastic to camp in one day in the future...or in any of the many National Parks with Sequoia's and Redwood Forests' in California. If you need a reminder of how small we are (and the ocean just doesn't make it clear enough!) these trees in the mountains certainly should do the trick. :)

There are a lot more pictures, but this should give a pretty good idea of what it was like!
Once I got home I did a few errands and rented the second Twilight movie, which I've been meaning to watch for the past year. And then of course once I was hooked I had to find out what happened next so tonight I went and saw the most recent one. :) Apparently they are doing the last one in two installments... sounds like a wannabe Harry Potter. So dumb. And what's with all sorts of random movies coming out in 3D?

Anyways, it was a great weekend all around. Refreshing, new and exciting :)

Fantastic Holiday, Fantastic Weekends

It's been a busy last two weekends! Two weekends ago I met up with Julian who is an intern with NASA for the summer. He invited some friends and a trip Universal Studios was in the works!

I have to admit, I liked Universal a lot more than I expected to! Since we got there (relatively) early we decided to go on the Studio Tour while there was a shorter line, which turned out to be the right move since the lines progressively got longer as the day went by.

The tour was actually very clever, there were a bunch of sets specifically set up for the tour, from a 360 King Kong experience...

to a flash flood in little Mexico...

to the set of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas

and a subway earthquake!

All in all, it was pretty cool! I liked that there was a video on the tour bus itself, which meant they were able to show clips from movies filmed in areas as you were driving through them.

And of course seeing awesome friends that I love...

and remember from childhood!

And then we finished it up with an amazing dinner (as usual) at the Cheesecake Factory.


The next day we headed to Venice Beach, explored, hung out, were beach bums etc. The typical perfect/relaxing stereotypical summer activities. :) Venice was certainly an unusual place! From people with medical screenings for marijuana to henna tattoos and trinkets for sale, it seems you could find just about anything at the large outdoor street vendors.

The next week I was able to meet up with Ryan again in Santa Monica...
and then was 4th of July weekend! Brendan came in town and we had a blast!

I am glad I had the 4th of July weekend with Brendan to look forward to, however, the Friday before was my last day at ATS. :( It was bittersweet leaving because (not only was I really enjoying myself), but they also threw a pizza party for me. So after saying my farewells, it was off to a weekend adventure.

Saturday we went to the Getty Villa, which was pretty neat in terms of cultural experience. There was a bunch of Greek/Roman artifacts to look at and gardens to stroll through. The whole complex itself is built to model an ancient Roman home, so just walking through the museum was an experience.


I have to admit that our favorite part was probably the Herb Garden. We spent a ton of time sampling a little and sneaking a few tastes :)
That afternoon/night we headed to Hollywood to get the full tourista experience. After a quick dinner of fish tacos, we walked the Hollywood stars:

And saw the signatures & hand prints/footprints outside the Chinese Theater.

After that was a movie at a uber-fancy movie theater with FAN-TAS-TIC popcorn called the Arclight. It was expensive, but definitely worth it. Probably going to have to go back to that...

Sunday morning we grabbed some breakfast and wandered our way over to this impromptu car show that shows up in the mall parking lot near my apartment every weekend. There were actually some really sweet cars!

Then off to Santa Monica! The lazy day at the beach was perfect, wandered the pier and the appropriate carnival snacks of kettle corn and a snow cone.

The plan was to go ahead to the show at the Rose Bow, but we ended up getting stuck in traffic for ages. The entrance was blocked off, got stuck in traffic again trying to get to the other entrance... Once the fireworks started then they wouldn't let anyone move. Soooo we parked the car and were able to watch the majority of the fireworks through the trees. It wasn't perfect, but at that point after a perfect day... who cares! It turned out fine, particularly after we got some gelato to end the night!

All in all, 4th of July was amazing. Weekend before was amazing. Been a great past few weeks!

This week I started with my new job at SIE. It's been ok so far, nothing too exciting so far, but that's to be expected as it's the first week. We'll see how it goes! This weekend meeting up with Melissa and Tung for some festivities!