Balboa Park

These are images of plants in the botanical garden in Balboa park. I didn't know I would like flowers that much, but I took about 8 million pictures, just ask Aunt Jen. Yeah, I think we were in there a little too long. :P

San Diego

This was a day I spent with my family in San Diego. After the kids did their homework, we drove to Coronado and took the ferry across to San Diego. This is Aunt Jen, Harrison, and Garrett. 

This is the view of San Diego from the ferry.

Garrett

Harrison

San Diego at Night

More of California

This is Alicia and Chris, both good friends from SCAD, who moved to LA for their fields. On the right is them at their triathlon practice at the beach (at 6am). I know, I know, you are all wondering if I really got up that early, but I did.

The seaweed is bizarre on the west coast. It's not leafy, but thicker, tubular, and it feels like plastic. 

On my way back to meet with them after their practice, I ran across a car show at the pier.

additional california pictures i forgot

More of California...

Burbank....This is for you, Dempsey!

For anyone who had never experienced the 405, one of the major LA "freeways" (highways for the rest of the world), the picture below is really mild traffic. Just fyi. Pretty insane.

More of Santa Monica, CA

After an exhausting night of driving (and an Agricultural checkpoint), we woke up and started our California portion of the trip. Below was my introduction to California. For some reason, I would have never thought the mountains would be like they were. It looked like a continuation of Arizona, which was alright with me, absolutely gorgeous. 

These next few images were taken in Santa Monica, where we were meeting our friends and hosts, Alicia and Chris, for dinner. Very cool part of LA.

David's house.

My house.

There was a long pier with rides, restaurants, and a few gift shops. Pretty awesome seeing the ocean on the other side of the country!

This last one was me messing around, just for fun. I wrote my name with the street lights while we were waiting to meet up with Alicia and Chris. In the background some homeless person was talking to himself saying something about how everything they tell us is make believe. 

We had dinner at the California Kitchen and walked around Santa Monica, then headed back to our friends apartment for some rest. 

grand canyon day!

i will add text later. kinda lacking on internet.

las vegas

this is the hotel where we stayed called The Hacienda. There was a casino on the first floor, and lots of old men and women playing slots, drinking beer, and smoking cigarettes at 10am.





the famous little white chapel




the epitome of vegas.
this was low key compared to other things we saw.
a lot of things that are illegal in the rest of the country are legal in vegas.






overall, it was a pretty incredible sight. the lights at night were awesome, and to think about the construction that was put into the casinos is mind boggling. i can see why people travel here.