I just bought my ticket for a tomorrow morning showing of The Dark Knight. I found this iPhone App where you can Joker-ize your photos. Just thought I would share.

Labels: movies, photos, Random

Our last day in San Diego, we planned on going to the San Diego Pride Parade but after no luck find a parking spot, I finally gave up and made the decision to bypass the parade altogether and head directly to Los Angeles.

Half way to LA we stopped in Oceanside, CA for food. We walked along the pier and finally stopped at a Bubble Tea. After a croissant breakfast sandwich from Crepes Up! and peach flavored tea, we got back on the road.

We finally reached the outskirts of the LA and we hit TRAFFIC. The traffic jam added about 30 minutes to our travel time but we finally made it to our hotel in downtown LA. Not before getting lost due to Google Maps faulty directions. The hotel was nice, but the thing that I hate is when you shell out big bucks for a hotel AND THEN you don't have free wi-fi Internet access in your room. Why is that? Anyway ... we checked in, freshened up, and headed to Hollywood.

More traffic later, we finally made it to Hollywood & Highland Center right next to the Kodak Theatre.


We exited the mall and headed to the Graumans's Chinese Theatre. The plan was quickly abandoned when we saw of all of the tourists. It was so jammed packed full of people that I began to feel claustrophobic that I had to get out of there. We stopped at a local drug store for water and we began to walk down Hollywood Blvd. to Sunset (Strip) Blvd. We thought were heading toward the gay area but we obviously going the wrong way. I did want to ask for direction to the "gay area," for obviously reasons. But my friend had no shame and we got back on course and we were in the gay area in about 10 minutes.

The gay strip in West Hollywood was an experience considering it is so much bigger than the gay strip in Dallas. The guys, on the other hand, were so generic in LA. It seems like everyone looked the same but in a different race. It was weird. We took a break at a bookstore, and I noticed a woman reading the new Harry Potter book with a cup of Pinkberry. I asked where the nearest Pinkberry was and she pointed me in the right direction.

Before entering Pinkberry, the doorman greeted me (yeah...they have a doorman) with a "Welcome to Pinkberry!" and I had to figure out what the hell was Pinkberry so I could make an order. I thought it was ice cream but it actually some kind of frozen yogurt treat. I got a green tea with raspberries, blueberries and chocolate chips. It was weird, yet delicious.

We made our way back to the Hollywood & Highland Center three hours after we started, and the crowds were still huge. On our way to the food court I saw someone familiar. I have seen him somewhere but I wasn't sure where ... until it hit me.

Okay ... I am going to ask you not to judge me when I reveal how the person was. Thanks!

I recently watched a documentary called Mr. Leather, that Rich wrote about on his blog FourFour. I really liked it, but Rich ... not so much.


His name was Gannon Grey. Gannon was walking in front of us in a "Butch Bear" long-sleeve t-shirt and I excitedly I told my friend who was. I know the guy wasn't "famous" but I still excited. My friend told me that I should go talk to him but I couldn't work up the nerve to introduce myself, so I decide to stalk (in a good way) him a bit further. After he got himself a cookie/ice-cream treat from Nestlé and took a seat in the middle of the food court, I decided to make my move. I casually walked up to him and asked if he was from the documentary, which he confirmed my identification, and we chatted for a minute. I was a wreck. He was very nice to indulge me. He was much more handsome in person than in the documentary. He was a bit more grey and thinner, but handsome nonetheless. This even made me more nervous, so I decided not to ask to take a picture with him because I had to get out of there before I made a lost it.

We walked around the mall a bit more before heading Santa Monica Beach.


Santa Monica Beach was fun ... scary, expensive, cold ... but fun.

We had dinner at the Third Street Promenade were we had to wait almost and hour for pizza. It took about 20 minutes before our waiter even greeted us. We were not happy about our service.

We heading back to the hotel and crashed for the night.

Labels: los angeles, people, photos, road trip, san diego, santa monica beach, travel

We slept in late, and then had breakfast at the hotel. We were supposed to have a free continental breakfast, but they ran out of food. I don't know how, but they did. So we had to order from the menu and given a 10% discount. After breakfast we set out to walk around the downtown area.

Our first stop was Horton Plaza, which is a mall in the center of downtown.


The mall was as beautiful as it was confusing to navigate within it.

From there we headed south toward the bay and the Gaslamp Quarter. I saw tennis courts on top of the convention center and I tried to get there to view the conditions and to see if I could rent a court. Unfortunately, the courts were for guest staying at the Marriott. But I was able to get this picture:

photo coming soon

We walked to PETCO Park where the San Diego Padres play. I confused it with the stadium where the San Francisco Giants play because I know very little about baseball. I thought about going to a games because there was a lot of hoopla about a tribute to Tony Gwynn. We decided against it and continued our walk for a couple more hours before heading back to the hotel for some rest.

Our next stop was the San Diego Zoo:


This is the view from the Skyfari, which I was keen on taking but regretted it soon after because we were up so high. I have a fear of heights, y'all.

The zoo was nice, but most of the big cats were sleeping because it in the middle of the afternoon. We did a bus tour of the park and I got some good shots of the animals from my vantage point.


My friend told me that his friends urged him to visit the San Diego Zoo because it was one of the best zoos. I only found it okay. I think the Toronto Zoo was much better, but the last time I was at a zoo was 12 years ago.

Back to the hotel for a change of clothes and then off to dinner in Little Italy.

We walked from our hotel to a place called Zagarella Italian Restaurant, and had dinner on their terrace. Our waitress was nice, yet forgetful, but it didn't spoil our dinner. During the course of our meal there was their guy (which I assumed was Eastern European) pacing next to our table on the terrace. I thought the was an escort, but I can't confirm that because I didn't ask. We finished our meal, and then walked to Extraordinary Desserts for, what else, dessert. I got Gianduia (description: Myer's Rum laced chocolate cake layers are married with hazelnut buttercream, chocolate mouse, and boysenberry perserves.) It was delicious.

Back to the hotel for digestion and sleep.

More San Diego Zoo pictures: here

Labels: food, photos, road trip, san diego, travel, zoo

Last time I mentioned Alice for Australia's Next Top Model was to profess my love for her. Well, she won the show AND she is on the cover of (Australian) Vogue. Take a look:


Gorgeous.

If she were on America's Next Top Model, she would have been beaten out by a girl with active leprosy and two teeth all because Tyra would have thought she had an interesting journey.

[photo source: The Fashion Spot]

Labels: american's next top model, australia's next top model, fashion, photos

There were more mountains to traverse at break-neck speeds from Tucson, AZ to our next destination San Diego, California. I think we went up and down two mountains ranges but there was some neat stuff along the way. There was a wind farm, huge sand dunes that seem to comes from nowhere and a water channel that was redirected from the Colorado River for irrigation of Southern California.


When we it the suburbs of San Diego and the entire landscape changed. There were expensive houses on the side of mountains, stores and TRAFFIC. The traffic wasn't terribly bad, said the guy who is the passenger/navigator, but it was definitely much more congested. We ended up going the wrong way en route to our hotel but we eventually got back on track and made it to the downtown hotel. After checking in, and see the amazing view of the bay from our room, we heading out to the Historic Old Town section of the city.

We had lunch at a local restaurant called O'Hungry's, and when we finished we decided to walk around. We hiked up a hill leading to Presidio Park, which I wasn't too thrilled about because I didn't have proper footwear ... but I trucked on away. At the very top of Presidio Park you could see the bay/ocean and all the congestion on the highway. From there, we headed to gay (or as it described, "alternative") section of San Diego called Hillcrest.

When we arrived in Hillcrest (after getting lost) we found parking and began to walk around the area. Hillcrest is much bigger area than the gay section of Oak Lawn in Dallas. We walked for blocks and there seemed to be rainbow flags posted everywhere. But like Dallas, there are new condos being built everywhere for ridiculous amounts of money. We drove around the downtown area for a bit and then made our way back to the hotel for a bit of relaxation.

Since we were both still stuffed from our late lunch, we decided to head out for dessert. When I told some people I was heading to San Diego, I was urged to visit Extraordinary Desserts. There was a location two blocks from were we where staying, so we walked for some sugary goodness. The desserts were indeed extraordinary. I got the Triple Chocolate Mousse which was made more extravagant with the addition of edible flowers and gold leaf. I made plans to go back the next day to try something else.

Now completely full, we headed back to the hotel for sleep.

Next ... second day of San Diego.

Labels: photos, road trip, san diego, travel

Originally, our route to Tucson took us south of Carlsbad towards El Paso, Texas, but due to the suggest of someone I know we decided to head north and visit White Sands National Monument. Armed with a set of new directions, we proceeded on our journey.

An hour or so into our trip the elevation began to rise quick as we traveled up through the Sacramento Mountains. The road was abundant with twist and turns that put my stomach into knots. I have with issues with heights, and adding sharps banks at speeds of 50+ miles per hour nauseated me. We reached the height of the mountain and stopped in a town called Cloudcroft, NM for gas and provisions. After filling up the tank we began our decent down the other side of the mountain. As we made our way down we entered in the Lincoln National Forest.

From Lincoln National Forest Photos

We snapped a few pictures and got back on the road.

Further down the mountain we saw a long a strip of white mass near the mountains ahead. My friend thought what we were seeing was just a mirage, but the it was just to massive to be that. Shortly after we saw signs pointing us toward Whites Sands National Monument, which proved what we were seeing was real.

We arrived at the park and made our way to the information desk to get information on the park and its attractions. Sleds were available in the gift shop to slide down the sides of the sand dunes. They were expensive, but it is something one should do while at the park. And they bought back the sleds at the end of your stay so you don't end up losing too much money. We grabbed our sleds, paid the entrance fee and proceeded through 1.3 miles of white sand.

From White Sands National Monument Photos

The sand dunes were massive and walking up them took some effort. On the very top of the dune everything was extremely brights that it took sometime to my eyes to adjust to the light reflecting off the white sand. The view of the dark hazy mountains in the distance against the white sand was worth the squinting. The warm sand between my toes, carefully avoids the fire ants, felt great. After taking in the view, we decided to slide down the dunes. My friend was braver that I was by going a ~75 degree slope, and then proceeded to fall of his sled and somersault backwards down the hill. Fortunately, he was okay ... but I found a more gentle slope to conquer. I got on my sled and got stuck in the sand. I hopped further to the edge of the slope but no progress in sliding. I just went deeper into the soft sand before sliding (slowly) down the hill as my friend and a bystander laughed along with me. Covered in sand, my friend made the observation that were forbidden to take sand out of the park, but we did not have much of a choice when it was lodged in every possible crevasse. After a couple of hours walking along a few trails, we decided it was time to hit the road.

A few hours later ....

We made it to Tucson, AZ. Nothing more to say about that. It looked okay but we decided that it wasn't worth venturing around. A couple of hours prior to our arrival the cities experience a bad monsoon which caused some damaged around the city. We experienced some wind and rain, but nothing too serious.

Dinner at Denny's and the back to the hotel for rest.

Next stop ... San Diego, California.

Labels: lincoln national forest, photos, road trip, travel, white sands national monument

I am currently on a 12 day road trip, but I plan on updating my blog daily with photos and stories from my journey. Places I will travel during my trip:

Carlsbad Caverns National Park (Carlsbad, NM)
White Sands National Monument (New Mexico)
California (San Diego and Los Angeles)
Las Vegas, Neveda
Grand Canyon Nation Park (Arizona)

... and other stops in between. This would be the farthest west I have ever traveled so I am extremely excited (and a bit nervous) to see other parts of the country. It should be a fun trip. I am with a friend of mine, and this would be our third road trip together. Our first road trip we ended up going to Provincetown, MA; and our second trip was my move from Buffalo, NY to Dallas, TX.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

From Carlsbad Cave...

We almost didn't make it to the caverns because we didn't leave our hotel until 4:20pm and the caverns closed at 5pm. We booked it to the park and got our tickets with a minute to spare. I got a bit sick in the car due to the increasing altitude, high speeds, and winding roads. The sickness passed and we got on an elevator and headed down 750 feet.

Seeing all of the stalactites, stalagmites and the pits which seem to lead nowhere was very interesting. Too bad that tour was somewhat ruined by the Rangers rushing people out because it was closing. But they were nice about rushing out of the caverns and gave us some additional views by turning off the lights.

If you are ever near the Carlsbad Caverns, it is a must see.

Labels: carlsbad caverns, photos, road trip, travel