July 4th

The dilemma. I have never willingly attended any of the "Merdeka" celebrations back home. Save for one dreadful year when I had to march around town along with my fellow BB members. The things I did for the sake of having a good participation in the compulsory co-curricular activities. Yet here I am, attending a July 4th celebration for the second time. Well, to be fair, it's a kinda relaxing and enjoyable affair.

It's a free concert by the Houston Youth Symphony Orchestra at an outdoor theater complete with cannons and fireworks as well. I have attended the same concert the year before but was unprepared. Both food and photography equipment. This year though, we planned a picnic under the stars accompanied by the beautiful music and I brought along a tripod.

The Miller Outdoor Theater where the celebration was held.

Men, load the cannons!

The whole celebration was civilized and nice. No "mat rempits" with flags sticking out the back of their bikes speeding. No "merdeka" race on the streets. My proudest achievement of all. My first set of barely presentable fireworks photos. I do know that there's much room for improvement but I'm just plain happy that they ended up looking presentable.

I think this looks like dandelions.

Long Vacation in USA - Part 6 - Yosemite

Oh my, it's been more than 1 months and I'm still not done with this long vacation. Well, let's continue.

It's our last day along the pacific coast highway and we managed to squeeze two sights before we rest for our adventure in Yosemite. After 7 days on the road, we're kind of tired and tend to wake up later in the morning. Still we managed to make it to the 17mile drive in Monterrey by mid morning.

Of almost 20 view points/attractions along the 17 mile scenic drive. Only a couple of them offer really pretty sights.

One of the more interesting view points in 17mile drive. Known as the restless sea. Due to the rocky and uneven seabed profile, the waves are very rough, irregular and breaking.

Basking seals on a rock.

Feeding the anonymous rodent. Could be a squirrel, could be a gopher.

This is known as the lone cypress. It's a truly amazing feat being able to stand alone facing the strong winds on a rock for hundreds of years. Sadly though, now, this lone cypress is held upright with the help of chains.

Perfect. A lone blue jay (I think). A lone cypress. Lucky I wasn't alone. :)

After that we rushed across San Fransisco, across the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito. The first view of San Fransisco and the Golden Gate through the windshield is truly amazing. Our destination in Sausalito is the Muir Woods National Monument. A coastal redwood grove.

First sight of the Golden Gate Bridge. Was rushing towards the Muir Woods.

Fallen Coastal Redwood

Craning my neck to have a glimpse of coastal redwood treetops.

The beautiful paved path among the tall ancient redwoods. These trees are a couple thousand years old!

Carpeting the base of the trees are these pretty clovers. Searching for a lucky four-leaf clover!

We hit the sack quite early that night because the next day would be a really taxing 4 hours drive to Yosemite National Park just in time for a Falls extravaganza. Waterfalls in the Yosemite Valley only appear during Spring, as the snow melts and formed the waterfalls. In summer, the falls would be all dried up and in winter it'd be frozen.

Yosemite is really a beautiful place, steep granite mountains and cliffs, awesome waterfalls, lush green meadows, peaceful woods and some wildlife too! (beware of the bears though). We even hiked up to the base of two waterfalls. It's a whole different experience compared to the waterfalls back home in Malaysia. The falls free fall from a dizzying height and it's made up of icy cold water. As physics dictate, when velocity is high, pressure and temperature is lowered. The icy cold water hitting the granite rocks at the bottom of the falls causing tremendous amount of icy splash. It's almost like rain! Freezing rain! Swimming is definitely a no-no. You could risk getting hypothermia by standing at the bottom of the falls for too long without warm clothings.

The first fall right right after entering the valley... forgot the name though there are just too many of them.

The bridal veil falls. It's a sheet of white chilly water free falling from the top of the granite cliff.

The rushing stream where the bridal veil falls end up in.

At the base of bridal veil falls. It's a wet, chilly, misty experience.

Yosemite falls

The mirror lake. Took almost an hour to hike up. However, the view is kind of disappointing. It had lost its former glory. The lake used to be bigger and the water so calm that you could see the reflection of the trees and even the cliffs.

The green meadows filled with life. It's spring after all!

The half dome. A granite mountain top which is shaped one half of a dome.

We hiked to the base of the lower yosemite falls for another freezing experience. It's said that on cold spring days, the water splashing on the granite rocks at the bottom of the falls would form ice particles in the air. Trust me, it is really cold!

We could only stay here long enough for a couple of pics before the cold forced us to go further away from the falls.

The beautiful view of the upper and lower yosemite falls.

The beautiful view of the yosemite valley. With El Capitan on the right, Bridal Veil falls on the left and the Half Dome peak in the distant center. Simply awesome.

The next day after some morning hikes around the valley, we went over to the Mariposa Grove, featuring giant redwoods. This grove has a collection of the world's biggest trees! The Giant Sequoias are the largest species of tree by volume. The biggest in this grove, the Grizzly Giant has a volume of around 35000ft^3.

With a guided tour around Mariposa grove, we ended our trip to Yosemite and started heading back to San Fransisco!

Giant Sequioas a.k.a Giant Redwoods. Imagine being the person who discovered this grove. Suddenly finding yourself walking among giants.

Huge gaping tunnel at the base of a giant sequioa. A car could easily pass through it. These tunnels are actually scars left by the numerous forest fires throughout the lifetime of these trees. The giant sequioas are among the sturdiest trees alive. They are resistant to fire, parasites and bugs. Their Achille's heel is their shallow roots. Damaged roots would cause these trees to topple over ending their .

That's the Grizzly Giant.

Long Vacation in USA - Part 5 - Pacific Coast Highway

The Pacific Coast Highway, the epitome of the American love for open road, cars and road trip. I was told there are several significant roads in the States. It was like a rite of passage for road trip lovers to do the PCH (west coast south to north) and Route 66 (east to west along the middle of USA).

This is really a very very nice road trip. The mist covered winding roads, offering spectacular views when the mist cleared up. The abundance of wildlife. The meadows and orchards. Of course, who can ever forget the sea, beach and sea cliffs that dot this coastal road. My only grouch, simply not enough time. We've scheduled a 3 days 2 nights journey along the short stretch of 460 miles.

We left Hollywood around late morning. Stop by a grocer to buy some food for our road trip and we're off to Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara is a town by the sea filled with wealthy yuppies and retirees. Picturesque as it is, the frequent forest fire marred our visit. We were reaching the Santa Barbara Mission located amongst one of the many sea-facing hillsides when we noticed black smoke in the skies. There's a forest fire just started not too long ago nearby our destination. We still managed to take some pictures of the Santa Barbara Mission with the thick black smoke as background. Later on after we left Santa Barbara, we heard over the radio that an evacuation order was given for residents in that area as the forest fire could not be contained.

Thick black smoke of the forest fire looming over the Santa Barbara Mission.

Along the way we stopped by some nice vista points and small towns/residential areas which comes with nice sea cliff views and seals as well.

One of the many beaches that line the western coast!

Beautiful yet strange flowers blossoming all along the coastline.

Houses by the sea right next to a cliff. On top of that, there's an abundance of wildlife ranging from seals to seabirds a few steps away from their doorstep. How novel!

The misty, dreamy sunset of our 1st day along the PCH.

Our first night along the PCH was spent in Cambria. It's a small touristy town. The weather in Cambria is cool and misty. Somehow reminded me of Fraser's Hill, just cooler, bigger and better. It was the eve of Rain's birthday as well. We searched high and low for an affordable restaurant that's still open at 8.30pm and had a nice dinner. The Bridge Inn Hostel (H.I) was really cozy. It would have been perfect if we could secure a private room instead of sharing room with some snoring dudes. Otherwise, it's really a 100% satisfaction and recommended lodging.

Sweet Frozen Margarita for the birthday girl! :)

Spicy Jambalaya. Something like chinese fried rice just that it wasn't fried.

This is really special. Fried avocado with chipotle dipping sauce. A great way to serve avocados.

Our hostel for the night in Cambria. Two thumbs up! Great hospitality, cozy and comfortable environment.

The beach a short drive from Cambria. Good for a late morning stroll.

Then, it's off to Hearst's Castle but not before we had a picnic by the beach.

This Hearst is some rich dude. Some kind of newspaper tycoon. He had a serious retail therapy addiction. Bought tonnes of stuffs and build a castle among the clouds (it is literally among the clouds when there's thick mist in the summer) in order to display his stuffs. There are still stuffs he bought that couldn't be fit into the castle and were stored in some warehouse. Anyway, this guy is history and the family donated the castle and all the antiquities inside to the National Park. That's why we get to visit it now.

The outdoor pool at Hearst's Castle. The name. Neptune's pool! Can't find a more suitable name!

The view from Hearst Castle. Imagine a misty morning and I'm really looking out from a castle in the clouds.

Casa Grande, main building of the Castle.

This statue is put in such a way and place that it's almost like a couple stealing a kiss in a hidden corner.

The indoor pool, tiled with GOLD! We actually get to walk on gold! ...if only I could pry some tiles home.

The elephant seals viewing area is just a short drive away. It was molting season for the female seals. So all we saw were hundreds of huge smelly elephant seals lying on the beach shedding their skins.

Hundreds of huge, stinky skin shedding female elephant seals.

The view from above the clouds (or mist). The drive along this coast is so nice... ... ... if only we had more time.

We didn't really expect spending so much time at some of the view points and ended up really behind schedule. So much so that we had to miss Pfeiffer Beach. It didn't help that this beach is pretty secluded with no road signs. This beach is supposedly very nice with purple sand and well-known only among locals. By the time we finally reached our hostel, it's already way past night fall. It was a scary experience looking for our lodging that night, a lighthouse that is not functioning at night, in an area that is enveloped in total darkness and not shown on GPS.

Where we spent the night. The Pigeon Point Lighthouse.