my travels in pixels

Even though it was summer, the weather in Sequoia was really pleasant. The only time we felt hot was when we walked down to the General Sherman tree which has a paved pathway in the sun, and when you go down, inevitably you have to come up! Sequoia is just over 6,000ft in altitude. While most people come here for the trees and we did too, but bears were also on our agenda.  black bear and cub The first morning out we took the bus shuttle up to Crescent Meadow. After about 15 minutes Lindsay heard some rustling up on the hill above the trail we were on. There were a sow and her cub eating the seeds from the big pine cones. We stood there for quite a while taking photos, she wasn't worried about us at all. Like Yosemite, this was the only sighting we had. We went out on trails a few more times, walking in Sequoia is lovely, there are lots of trails and most of them are in the shade. We camped at Lodgepole campground which was definitely the right one to be in. I had book...

San Francisco, CA Camping wasn't an option really for San Francisco, and we didn't want to stay in a hotel, so I organised a room through Airbnb. We stayed in Bernal Heights in a lovely house on a street that is a staircase! Public transport wasn't very far away so we were able to take the bus into the city everyday to anywhere we wanted to go. We visited all the main tourist spots - Alcatraz, Chinatown, Little Italy, the Wharf, the painted ladies, the Golden Gate bridge and rode the cable car of course. Often we would change into shorts and a t-shirt as it would be quite warm at our house, but in the city it would be freezing because of a cold wind. Just when we thought we had worked out the bus system, it would throw us another curly, such as the inbound and outbound would go on different routes because of one way streets. We certainly did a lot of walking up a lot of hills, you wouldn't need a gym membership in this city! Golden Gate Bridge the Painted Lad...

Next stop – Oregon. We had heard that the Oregon coast was really nice but again we encountered fog and someone had turned off the heating. I found a lovely spot to the east of Brookings, which isn't on the beach, which meant it was warmer - Alfred Loeb State Park . We hadn't been there half an hour when a lovely couple from north of Napa Valley invited us to dinner. Americans are so hospitable. All the campgrounds in Oregon are really good. The sites are well laid out, there is shrubbery to give you some privacy from your neighbour, hot showers that you don't have to scrounge around looking for quarters for that also allow you to move more than a few inches in each direction! and clean restrooms. The weather is just perfect - not too hot, not too cold (unless you go on the beach), sun, blue skies and a slight breeze. We moved up the coast and stayed at Humbug State Park and William Tugman State Park , both have trails close to the campground. Nehalem Bay has a the B...

Heading up the 101 which runs a bit inland from the coast we came across the "Avenue of the Giants" drive where you drive through the spectacular redwood trees. We got the last spot at the Humboldt Redwoods State Park which was surrounded by ferns and tall trees. It was beautiful.  view in front of our campsite, there is a road there but you can only tell when a car drives past Our aim was to get to the Redwoods National Park which is further up the road and we had rung and they said they had plenty of sites. I think we were given the wrong number as the Elk Prairie campground was reservation only and booked out.  There were sites at Mill Creek State Park and we got a lovely secluded site but the park is not really amongst the redwoods. Still in pursuit of better redwoods we headed north, they had three sites left at the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. I’m not quite sure what happened to the National Park, it seems to be melded in with the various State P...

Los Angeles is quite foggy in June/July and the weather is quite cool compared to the interior of the state, so it's a welcomed relief. In the mornings we walk along the beach where lots of other people are surfing, walking, running or riding their bikes. During the weekends people play beach volleyball. The houses on the hill at the southern end of the beach look like Positano in Italy. On one of our drives we went along Mulholland Drive/Hollywood to check out Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, and the Hollywood sign. When most people think of Hollywood, they are actually thinking of Beverly Hills. Rodeo Drive is in Beverly Hills, with lots of exclusive brand name shops. The traffic on the freeways is horrible, six lanes of fast moving mayhem. Getty Museum The Getty Museum is a private collection of pieces from all over the world. The museum is free but parking is $15. From Pacific Palisades we headed to Malibu to catch up with a Klaus, our photography friend...