Beautiful Californian beach!

And me without my surfboard!

All modest vehicles like this stretch limousine at a posh San Francisco Hotel should have hood ornaments like that! A real sign of style.

All the good books say to get on a cable car while in San Francisco.

Trouble is, none of them tell you how to get on! Does anyone have a stepladder?

And I thought that San Francisco catered for minorities and the physically challenged!

Having missed my cable car, naturally I got lost. So I asked these happy young guys outside the Grace Cathedral, on Nob Hill, what was what?

But they didn't know.



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Then I found these ads for veges that looked pretty tempting, so I set out for Salinas to try my hand.

Salinas is a bit south of San Francisco and is famous for being the centre (center) of a very big vegetable growing area. As well as being the home of a very famous writer named John Steinbeck. He won the Nobel prize once.

Picking strawberries looked like a reasonable thing to do, but look how long the row is! I couldn't even see that far, let alone walk that far.

Besides, by the time I had eaten a dozen or so, I didn't feel like working much any more.

So, the tractor driving job looked like it involved a lot less walking, but no...

By the time I got to the end of the row and walked around the wheel to turn around, I was still walking miles. Besides, I had trouble reaching the pedals.

Whew! All that hard work tuckered me out! So, I went to sleep with some words of the famous Steinbeck from his book 'Of mice and men.'

Maybe when I write a book, I will call it 'Of mice and lamb.'

Catchy, isn't it?

This book was recommended to me, though I cannot imagine why.

But I wasn't going to read it. I knew it would have stories designed to frighten little lambs!




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If it is not driving tractors, it is driving trains!

All the way up into the mountains, in eastern California, to Sonora and Columbine, which is part of 'Gold Country!'

Whoo whoooooo!

They reckon it is hard work looking for gold. So I asked what it was I had to do.

So I put my nose to the grindstone...

And my shoulder to the wheel...






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And my rump in the saddle.

But I never saw any gold! Only sore feet, sore shoulders and very sore rump!

Then I found the wine barrel, but that only gave me a sore head!



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I was tempted by this sign, but on reflection, and a closer inspection, I figured it was a ranch that kept sheep, not a ranch that was run by sheep.

Thanks, but no thanks!

So I did a bit of sight seeing. I went up into the woods in the high country. People said to watch out for bears.

Bears. What bears?

No bears, but what is this white, cold stuff all over the ground?

Did someone leave the fridge door open again?

This area had some big trees. And I mean big. They were very tall and very wide.

They were so tall that I still couldn't see to the top. But I figured that out. I just had to roll over onto my back to look up. Does anyone have a pair of binoculars?


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I went over to this one and leaned on it for a rest. It sort of fell over.

Do you think anyone will mind?

Can you see me?

This one, on the other hand, fell over over 100 years ago.

Boy, these Americans take a long time to clean things up don't they?

Can you see me?

Only that I am a quadriped (that means that I walk with all four feet on the ground - 'quadra' means four, and 'ped' means foot), I would have saluted the flag.

This is a very common sight around America - the flag and "God bless America" written underneath. It always makes me uneasy though. The inference is that God should bless America and nowhere else.


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On the way south out of gold country and heading towards Yosemite national park the ground kept rising up in front of me. Eventually we went over 6000 feet! Now, I know a little bit about the imperial system of measurement (miles, yards, feet and inches) compared to the metric system (kilometres, metres, centimetres and millimetres), and this is higher than the highest point on mainland Australia!

Looking at the entrance sign, this Yosemite looks like my kind of place!

Yosemite Valley, in Yosemite park, was formed million of years ago by the action of glaciers during the last ice age. So the walls of the valley are very steep. As it is early spring, the snow is melting so there is a lot of water in the waterfalls that collects in the river behind me. And that water in the river is very very cold. Brrrr.

Those cliffs are very tall - see the trees on top of the mountain? They are way tall.


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The big cliff on the right is 'Half Dome,' one of the tallest rockfaces in the world. The mountain in the middle still has some snow on it, but it will trickle down the valley soon.

The cliffs here are ginormous. I have never seen such rocks anywhere in Australia. I wonder why they don't fall down?

Yosemite Park has an Indian village display which shows how the original American inhabitants lived. This is a teepee, the kind of shelter they used to build. Of course they live in houses now.

The Indians used to grind their grain using a mortar and pestle. The mortar is this really big rock where the constant use has worn a hole, and they used a smaller smooth stone as a pestle.

I have discovered why there are so few forests left in California. They cut down most of the trees to make these cross-sections for the tourists to look at!



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The snow melts and trickles off the hills into streams that join to form the rivers. This one, below Yosemite, is raging with the snowmelt to make these rapids.

All the way back to Los Angeles, and the city streets, the freeways, the traffic, the sirens and the fire engines!

Can you see me?

On Wiltshire Boulevarde in Los Angeles is the La Brea tar pits. Long, long ago (this means millions of years), a natural pit formed that contained tar at the surface of the ground. Sometimes animals would get stuck in the tar and die. The tar preserved their bones so well that, millions of years later, they are dug up and are found in near perfect condition.

Many of the animals that died there are now extinct (this means that they are no longer found on the earth). This includes mammoths, sabre-tooth cats and sloths. Now, the mammoths were REALLY big. This is a tooth from an Imperial Mammoth!

No sooner did I get off the mammoth tooth, than I was picked up by a sabre-tooth cat. But he didn't hurt me because he was only a skeleton of his former self.

At the science centre there are all kinds of things for kids to play with to learn about how science works. That tired me right out, but I found a chair, just my size, to have a rest on. (Actually, I think they may have got it from baby bear!)




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LOOK OUT!

Low flying jet!!!

Henry! Is that you again??

My favourite picture at Huntington Library is this one, which looks like a muster to me. Can't see any drovers, though....

Huntington Library is in San Marino near Los Angeles. I think it should be San Merino. Though a lot of us would be better off if we were indeed sans merino!

Ah! The smell of eucalyptus! How sweet it is. It reminds me of the home paddock! All those in my family that I miss, boo hoo.

In the Australian garden at Huntington Library.

After all those giant redwood trees and sequoia trees, at last a tree my size! A bonsai in the Japenese garden at Huntington Library.

I took a stroll in the Chinese Garden too, but if you are ever there and you are about 4 inches high (10 centimetres), my advice to you is to watch out for guardian cats! By jingo, they're quick.





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I overheard a bit of conversation among the Frecko clan this morning and I have a feeling they are moving on soon. So, if you do not hear from me for a while, do not worry. Start worrying when everything gets written in French!!