On Mission: "Chasing dreams"

• Mission X: Yosemite National Park / Las Vegas / San Diego / L.A. / Big Sur
• Iridium Mission: Hawaii

The approach to Yosemite National Park; a long winding road through ever colder climbs. We stopped at the highest point to get out and be in the snow for the first time in years. (But we would soon have more than we bargained for!)

	The next morning, our cabin is covered in a foot of snow. The views dissapear and all roads out of the valley are impassable.
Kirk thought that the snow on these vending machines was very funny... ... It must be American humour.
	We do the first hike out to see the bottom of Yosemite falls. Suddenly the snow stops for a while and the sunlight beams through.
Later that day we go out to hike up to Nevada falls, but are pushed back by a blizzard. We try again the next day in gorgeous sunshine and I make this snow-angel
	Icicles have built up on this tree so much that they look like part of it.
An unidentified californian bird.
	The bananna shape of Nevada falls the next day.
Kirk and I at the foot of a giant waterfall.
	Yosemite Falls: from top to bottom it is higher than Snowdon in North wales.
We left Yosemite National Park and swapped the snow and ice for the heat and dryness of Las Vegas, via the Mohave Desert.
	Here we are in the blazing sunshine atop Hoover dam.
It's big.... no, make that.. VERY big.
	Inside the Turbine halls of Hoover Dam. It generates enough electricity to power all of Las Vegas.
The long road windeth.... well, acctually it goes completely straight for hundreds of miles, but the sentinment is there.
	One of the rather large Cactai on the California/Nevada border. I nearly killed us a few minutes after this shot was taken, but that's not a story that I am willing to publish on the internet.
Motoring out on the waters of Long Beach harbour, we found this old lady quietly rusting away.
	Driving back up the coast from L.A. along U.S. Highway 1.
Hearst Castle, built by William Randolph Hearst, who's life inspired Orson Wells' epic 'Citizen Kane'. This is his outdoor swimming pool
	This is his indoor swimming pool. Yes, the tiles really are made of gold.
His front entrance-way made up of lots of bits of European churches. 'Tone it down' was not in his repertoire.
	And what Physicist wouldn't enjoy the chance to drive back over Stanford Linear Accelerator.
July 4th, and I get around the little legal problems of an under 21 year old serving alcohol by invading. That day, the back deck of Kirk's house was officially a Crown Colony of Her Magesty Elizabeth II
	And here I am writing it all down in my journal.

Iridium Mission: Summer 2001
Over a month in Hawaii, SCUBA diving and lots of exploring.
 
 

Me on Mars..... Ok it was Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, but it looks like Mars. All the black rocks were thrown out by a gigantic explosion and have been found for many miles around. Taken: Iridium Mission Summer 2001
	Hiding out in the Bamboo Forrests of Kauai (Where they shot "Jurassic Park") Taken: Iridium Mission  Summer 2001