Los Angeles

  On our way to Los Angeles we drove along the Pacific Coast Highway which had 79 miles of winding road along the cliff next to the ocean.  It was absolutely amazing and a little bit scarey at the same time.  We saw lots of whales swimming in the ocean and dad saw one breach right out of the water.  At the bottom of the highway at Piedras Blancas we stopped and walked to the beach where there were thousands of elephant seals sunbaking on the sand. They come on shore to shed their skin, rest and have their pups.  The elephant seals were so loud that they made your ears hurt with their barking.  They were humongous, the males can weigh up to 4 tonnes.  

  We said goodbye to the elephant seals and continued on our trip to Los Angeles (L.A.).  It was really busy and it took us forever to get to our hotel because of all the traffic.  LA was not what I expected, it was very dirty, crowded and it didn't feel very safe.  We saw the Hollywood sign and had lunch in McDonalds Hollywood.  A man asked us for directions and when we said we were from Australia he laughed and said "Hollywood isn't like it is on TV is it!?!"  We laughed and said "no it isn't!"

We walked along Long Beach at Santa Monica Pier, the beach was really flat with no sand hills, it went for miles.  People were on segways, riding bikes, roller blading, playing beach vollyball, surfing and swimming.  There were some guys kayaking too.  The highway was right next to the beach and it was really busy, but it was nice to be near the ocean again.  

We drove to "Muscle Beach" which is actualled named Venice Beach.  People call it Muscle Beach because lots of men work out on the sand showing off their muscles.  We weren't very impressed...  We drove along the beach for a while, there were a lot of buildings with artwork painted on them which was great to look at.  People were selling hot dogs, souvenirs, clothing, icecream, churros and lots of other things from stands.  It was a crowded but interesting place to be.

L.A. was our last stop in America before heading off to Peru.  Overall I thought America was awesome, every state was totally different and each state was amazing.  The food, the people, the weather, the customs, the music and the feel of each state was like travelling from one country to another even though they are all in America.  My favourite state was Tennessee because I loved all the snow, it was so beautiful on the trees.  We heard stories of cheeky bears sitting in hot tubs, the food was magnificent and the people were so polite and friendly.  I'd love to come back to America one day.  Hannah

San Francisco

San Francisco is named after the Italian Saint, Francis of Assisi who was a friar (monk) in the 12th Century.  He is famous for being a humble and pious man who started his own order of monks in the church which is now known as the Franciscan Order.  He is also the first documented case of stigmata which is bleeding from the hands and feet and sometimes the side where Jesus bled from when he was crucified on the cross.

  While we were in San Francisco we walked down Lombard Street which is so steep that it needed to be zig zagged down the hill just so that people can drive down without going too fast.  The street was full of gardens so it looked really nice and lots of people were walking down the street just to see it.  When we left San Francisco dad drove down Lombard street, it was pretty cool.  We saw the Golden Gate Bridge which is actually red.

  We had a walk down at Fisherman's Wharf where there was lots of seafood stalls selling clam chowder in bread bowls, seafood sandwiches, prawn cocktails and lobster salads.  We had a great time walking down Pier 39 with lots of different shops but the best bit about it was the sea lions.  The sea lions arrived at the Pier shortly after the Loma Prieta earthquake that hit San Francisco in October 1989 and they've been there ever since.  The seals were really funny and cute and there are over 900 of them, they are mainly male.

  After looking at the seals we caught a ferry to Alcatraz island where we looked around the prison and visited the art gallery in the new industries building where the prisoners used to sew and make things for the government.  There was an interesting art exhibition held by a Chinese artist called Ai Weiwei which was all about imprisoned human rights activists.  Most of his artwork were portraits made with Lego that was built on top of a platform and then built up like a 3D painting, they were really good and looked amazing.

  He also made a huge Chinese Dragon Kite which had pictures of birds and plants that are icons for nations with records of violating human rights and civil liberties.  His art exhibition was fantastic, it would have taken a lot of time and effort to build all these lego and paper artworks.

  When we got back from Alcatraz Island we were really hungry so we got banana and nutella crepes from a shop at Pier 39, they were delicious!  Then we saw the Bubba Gump restaurant named after Forrest and his friend Bubba from the movie Forrest Gump.  "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get."  Drew

A L C A T R A Z - "The Rock"

 "You are entitled to food, clothing, shelter and medical attention.  Anything else you get is a privilege."  Alcatraz prison rules and regulations Number 5, 1934.   Alcatraz was a maximum security prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.  It is famous for being a prison that no one could escape from.  Before Alcatraz was a prison San Francisco was becoming a very busy place because of all of the gold mines surrounding the city. They had to build a lighthouse on the island because of all the ships going past to San Francisco port.  In 1852 for defence Alcatraz became a fort with rows of open gun emplacements and 111 cannon to protect the city and its rich port.  More than 400 soldiers were stationed on the island until 1907 when the army left because they didn't need it anymore.

  Alcatraz was a prison almost from the very beginning.  In 1859, 11 soldiers were confined in Alcatraz when the first soldiers arrived.  During the civil war soldiers convicted of desertion, theft, assault or murder and citizens accused of treason were imprisoned at Alcatraz.  The prison also kept American Indians captured during the various Indian Wars and convicts captured during the Spanish-American War.  During the Great Depression of the 1930's the American Bureau of Prisons became interested in the island as a place for a high profile, maximum security facility.  In 1934 Alcatraz reopened as a federal penitentiary. 

  Of the 1545 men who did time on Alcatraz only a handful were notorious, among them was Al "Scarface" Capone, "Doc" Barker, Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, George "Machine Gun" Kelley, Floyd Hamilton and Robert Stroud the "Birdman of Alcatraz".  I thought that it was funny that Alvin "Creepy" Karpis was called that because he looked really creepy and walked around the prison on his tippy toes.  Most of the inmates were men who had proved to be problems in other prison populations - escape risks and trouble makers.  We listened to stories told by some of the prisoners and prison guards of Alcatraz about what life was like back then in the prison.  One of the prisoners said it was like torture being in Alcatraz because you could see San Francisco city and everyone going about their business so close but you could never be part of it.  On  clear nights with no wind they could sometimes hear music and laughter across the bay.

  Of the 14 attempted escapes from Alcatraz, the best known occurred in 1962,  when Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin slipped into the water.  To trick the prison guards they made copies of their own heads out of soap, paper mache and hair and put them in their beds to look like they were sleeping.   Then the prisoners dug out of their cells through the air vents, climbed up the side of the pipes in the ducts, crawled across the roof and climbed down the down pipes to the water.  They used raincoats and life jackets to get across the bay and were presumably bound for San Francisco.  Although their bodies were never found it was assumed that they had drowned because of the dangerous currents that went straight out to sea, the freezing cold water and the distance to land.  The prisoners were never seen or heard of again.  

  As part its security, the Bureau of Prisons deliberately restricted visitors to "The Rock".  It may have been this isolation and secrecy that fuelled stories of Alcatraz's miserable living conditions.  Although few of these stories were true - the prison was clean and the food was good, Alcatraz was undeniably a maximum security facility.  The Ranger at Alcatraz told us that the prison guards used to tell the prisoners that they once caught a massive shark here and cut it's left fin off and threw the shark back into the ocean.  The shark couldn't swim off and could now only ever circle the island waiting to eat the prisoners who would try to escape.  

  Alcatraz was never a facility for executions.  8 inmates were murdered by other inmates, 5 committed suicide and 15 died of natural causes including disease.  Bodies were sent back to family members or in a few cases, were burried in local paupers' graves. Increasing maintence and operational costs led Alcatraz to be closed permanently in 1963.  Prisoners were transferred to other correctional facilities and Alcatraz was left to the care of a lone custodian.  Today Alcatraz is a National Park that is home to many bird species, mice, slender salamanders and insects.  Many different plants that were brought over by the soldiers and correctional officers grow all over Alcatraz Island, infact it is now quite a beautiful place.  Hannah

Redwood Trees (Giant Sequoias)

On our last day in Yosemite National Park we walked through the Redwood forest in Mariposa Grove.  The trees here are called Giant Sequoias, the Coastal Redwood trees also in California are taller than the Giant Sequoias but the Giant Sequoias trunks have a much larger circumference than the Coastal Redwoods.  Coastal Redwood trees are the tallest trees in the world, they grow to 115 metres tall and Giant Sequoias are the widest trees in the world with a circumference of over 30 meters.

  This is a comparison of a human compared to a Coastal Redwood and a Giant Sequoia, the measurement is in feet.  (Karri trees grow to about 81 meters tall and can get up to 16 meters in circumference.)  Giant Sequoias now only inhabit a narrow belt along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada.  They were once found across much of the northern hemisphere.  They need a climate of 1800 metres in elevation, heavy snows, sunny days, mildly cold nights, frequent fires and enough moisture for them to flourish.

  This is The Grizzily Giant, one of the biggest and oldest trees in the world.  He is over 1800 years old and has survived over 50 bushfires.  When pioneers started putting out naturally occuring fires in the area they noticed declining growth of the sequoias.  The trees need fire to open their cones, disperse their seeds and keep other plants growth under control.  The cones are suprisingly small for such a giant tree.  The fire doen't hurt the sequoias because of their bark, it is over a foot thick and is really dense, it is also rich in tanins which helps prevent insect infestation.

Visiting the Giant Sequoias was an amazing experience, the trees live as a community by sharing nutrition through their bonding root systems.  Moss grows thick on some of the trees, it does not hurt them as it gathers nutrition from the air.  Mariposa Grove is going to be closed in May for 2 years to help preserve the trees and improve their health.  Giant Sequoias have such shallow root systems that are effected by the pressure of people walking around them every day, it is actually killing them.  Park rangers are hoping that by closing the park to visitors for a long period of time it will enable the Giant Sequois to live longer and increase their numbers.  I really hope it works.  Drew

Yosemite National Park

  On the way into Yosemite National Park (and on the way out) there were miles and miles of lush green fields of grass.  A lot of these fields were cattle farms who had to share their land with............ ground squirrels!! The squirrels were everywhere that you looked, there were thousands of them running around. They live in burrows and the burrows look a bit like mole hills popping out of the ground.  We parked the car and watched the squirrels for a while, they were fighting, sitting up and looking around just like meerkats, eating, digging, laying down relaxing and generally being cheeky.  They were very cute and of course we loved them!

  We arrived in Yosemite National Park and stayed in a pine cabin in the woods.  We went for a walk down to the river near the cabin to do a bit of exploring.  It was very peaceful with the water running by over all the rocks.

  The water was freezing cold so we didn't go in!  There were really tall pine trees everywhere and you could hear all the birds singing, it felt like we were at home again.  We went to the Yosemite Pioneer Village to look at all the old log cabins that people used to live in.  They were really nice and cosy, it would have been cool to live in one of them in the woods.

The bridge over the river was very different to the ones that we have at home.  It had a roof and walls to protect the wooden beams holding the bridge up from the extreme weather.  The pioneers used to build most of the bridges this.

   It was really nice staying in Yosemite National Park for a couple of days, we toasted marshmallows on the fire and had hot cocoa and relaxed.  Hannah

Mammoth Lakes

  We drove through the desert once we left Las Vegas and eventually came to the Mammoth Mountains.  We stayed at Mammoth Lakes overnight on our way to Yosemite National Park.  In the morning we decided to go snow tubing at Mammoth Mountain - it was awesome!

  We went tubing in the snow for an hour and a half.  We were towed up the mountain on a strap pulley system that took us to the top.  When you got to the top you had to jump off and walk over to the slopes where a man would push you down the hill on your tube.  We went really fast and had races, went doubles, spun around and lots of other fun stuff.

  Then we were off to Yosemite Park!  Drew