Elephant Seals

See my seal photostory on my Facebook page. One seal forces his way into the group and forces another one out.

Whale Watching at the Point Reyes Lighthouse

Can you see the whale's tail??

People watching for whales

The Lighthouse . . . . . . . even closer

The Lighthouse . . . . . . . closer

The Lighthouse . . . . . . .

How many steps down? Over 300? And the same back up????

More Wildflowers

There are many more Point Reyes wildflower photos on my Facebook page.

Plants, Wildflowers, and Ladybugs

Do you see the Ladybug in the bottom photo?

Birds and Deer

Surfers, kites, and relaxing

This guy had the right idea: relax on the beach! More photos of the kite flyers and the surfers are on my Facebook page

Point Reyes Beaches

Saturday Overview

Today I went to Point Reyes National Seashore (http://www.nps.gov/pore/). It was fun. I walked along the beach, watched people surf and fly kites, and looked at the wildflowers, seals, whales, birds, and deer. The only disappointment was no seashells! Only sand and a few small rocks on the seashore. I drove up to the park on Route 101 as suggested by the web site. Kinda boring as the road went through some small towns and urban and commercialized areas. I did get to see some typical northern California suburbs and weekend life (high school car wash in one town, a grade school rummage sale in another). Going back to San Francisco I took Route 1 along the shore. Much more interesting. The road winds along the coast, in and out through the woods. A much more scenic drive. Here are some photos of Point Reyes.

Preparing for California

Ah yes. Time to travel once again. Although, to be honest to all of my intrepid readers, I did take short trips in both January and February but decided not to share those exciting adventures with an audience. Now it is off to California for the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute user meeting on Genomics of Energy & Environment in Walnut Creek, one hour by train northeast of San Francisco. For those interested, the meeting web site is http://www.jgi.doe.gov/meetings/usermtg08/ I plan to spend Friday afternoon and evening in San Francisco and spend Saturday all day at Point Reyes National Seashore (http://www.nps.gov/pore/). I just got a new "super zoom" lens for my camera so I hope to take pictures of whales, sea lions, birds, and flowers at Point Reyes. Let us hope that it doesn't rain on Saturday and that the day will be sunny so that I can share some good photos.

More evidence of aliens in Roswell

Today I continued my quest to find aliens in Roswell. I found a crashed spaceship on main street (photo) and a t-shirt extolling the taste of barbequed aliens ("just like chicken"). Finally, checking out of one store my cashier was an actual alien (photo).

Where are the aliens in Roswell?

This afternoon I went in search for aliens in Roswell. Where? In the Wallmart of course. Where else would aliens blend in with the rest of the crowd? In fact, the Wallmart seems to advertise that they are alien-friendly. Here are some pictures of the murals outside the Wallmart showing aliens shopping inside. Here also is a photo of me with a large alien inside the Wallmart and another photo of me outside waiting for the bus with some aliens. Stay tuned with my blog, tomorrow I go in search of flying saucers.

Christmas in Roswell?

Time to travel to Roswell, NM, for Christmas. Some people think New Mexico is a foreign country (after all, Mexico is in the name). I brought my passport just in case. You never know if you will need it to get back to the "real" U.S. How exotic and far away is Roswell? It takes over 12 hours to get there from New Jersey. I can get to Rio de Janeiro in 9 hours, Tokyo in 12 hours, almost any city in Europe in less than 10 hours, but Roswell takes forever. Why? It is in the middle of nowhere. On my favorite airline Continental I need to first fly to Houston, wait a few hours (good time for lunch, excellent restaurants in the Houston airport), and then continue to Albuquerque (another airport with a good restaurant). Then after a few hours wait a small airline called Mesa flies a tiny plane the last 45 minutes to Roswell. Wait … the departure schedule in the Albuquerque airport says the Roswell flight is cancelled? A quick check at the Mesa desk confirms: no pilots are available to fly the plane. Hmmm … should I take the offer of a free hotel room plus a free dinner and breakfast and fly tomorrow at 1:30? And take the chance that they might cancel that flight also? Or should I rent a car and drive the three plus hours to Roswell? Since I only plan three days in Roswell I decide to rent a car and reserve one online (the Albuquerque airport has free internet!!!! Why can't other airports do this?). Now, should I be nice and volunteer to drive the other stranded passengers? Or should I be naughty and simply ignore them? Since I want lots of presents from Santa this year I decide to be nice. Luckily there are only two other passengers going to Roswell that evening. I make them a deal: if they promise to keep me awake while I am driving I will give them a free ride to Roswell. It turns out that they are both singers: one sings in Las Vegas and the other in Nashville. Quite an interesting mix as they kept calling me "the professor" like on Gilligan's Island. They kept up their end of the bargain and played some of their CDs and sang solos. We had a lively conversation to pass the boring time driving through the mountains and across the plains after dark. Finally we get to Roswell and have coffee in the Starbucks in the giant Wallmart parking lot on the north side of town while waiting for their relatives to pick them up. My good deed for the day.

Sunday - back in NJ

Sunday we landed in Newark. In a mild snow storm. Quite a difference from Brazil. Immigration went really fast and we got all our luggage except for one bag right away. The last bag took another 40 minutes or so to come off, supposedly one of the luggage compartments was frozen shut. Our limo driver drove us back to Rutgers in the snow fall. When I got home I made fresh squeezed orange/tangerine juice and Brazilian coffee to drink with fruit for breakfast. Of course eating fruit and drinking juice and coffee for breakfast in NJ is quite a bit different from eating fruit and drinking juice and coffee for breakfast in Brazil. A very big difference in state of mind.

Saturday - where is everyone?

Saturday morning in my hotel I waited and waited and waited for my group to call me. No one did :( My friend Helaine from Piracicaba called my hotel room twice that morning because she wanted to meet up with me and the students for one last day together. Helaine agreed to drive two hours to Sao Paulo to meet me late in the afternoon. So I went to a flea market and a shopping mall just to walk around and window shop. Late in the afternoon I met up with Helaine and we went out for passion fruit ice cream (the best!) plus coffee (Helaine) and fresh orange juice (me). Then Helaine drove me to the airport where I met up with my students, they couldn't get their boarding passes without the paper tickets in my backpack.

Friday - Food poisoning!!

Friday morning I woke up feeling very bad. I think it was a mild case of food poisoning. Probably from the truck stop the night before. Everyone else checked out of the hotel and moved to the one that USP originally reserved for us for Friday night. I stayed in bed the whole day sleeping while everyone else went shopping in Sao Paulo. Here is the view from my hotel room window. The "Christmas tree" on the right looks very nice lit up at night.

Thursday night change of venue

Thursday afternoon we decided ourselves to alter the schedule. We wanted to go to Sao Paulo that evening. So, Evelyn found us a great hotel in Sao Paulo and called and made reservations for us. We convinced the bus driver to leave that evening. We left the San Carlos bungalows just after 8:00PM. We stopped along the way at a Brazilian truck stop. A REAL truck stop. We had dinner there against my better judgment. We finally got to our hotel in Sao Paulo just after midnight. Here is a photo of one of our roommates saying goodbye as we left Pirassununga.

Thursday USP Pirassununga flower photos

I was a little bored today so I walked around a few times and took pictures of flowers.