Friday-Makeup Schools 
So, Laura and Mom flew in on Thurs. On Friday we had to be at the bus stop by 7:20am in order to catch the bus to head into downtown LA and get to Laura's first appointment in Burbank. Laura is looking at going to a make-up school in LA and there are two that she wanted to check out. So she made appointments to get tours. The first one was Mudd, Make-up Designory. It looked neat. The area was nice.
Once that was done we headed down into Hollywood to go see her other school, Cinema Makeup School. We got there about an hour early, but the 2:30 appointment didn't show up (at least not on time) so we got in early. After walking around there and chatting with some people Laura got really excited. So, that's probably where she'll end up going.
That night we went to Wicked. It was awesome. It was really funny and really well done. Joe went home before that so just Mom, Laura and I went to it. We didn't get back to the RV that night until after 12am.
-Miranda

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Hmmm I hit a car today. I won. 
We were riding bike back from a china buffet down by the harbor, I was going probably 15mph when a new shiny honda civic fully opened it's door in front of me, I veered, but it was too late, My right chest went fully into the top pointy edge of the door.. I was fully stopped by this, not even falling over :) by the time the stars cleared in my head, I had a slight minor chest pain, but the poor chaps door was nearly ripped off ;) Oh well... He couldn't close it as the brackets were all strectched and the open-limit bar ripped :)

Thanks for new cheap-plastic-cars, they bend really well, to cusion the impact ;)

We had a better surfing experience this morning, except for the 25+ people there.. . I managaged to paddle out of the beach break only once after 4 unsuccessful winding tries :) but it was nice. Tomorrow it should be a little smaller and cleaner, so it should be even better :)
-Joe

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Leaving the Sequoias 
We stayed at a campground that didn't have any bathrooms.. . You had to walk to the visitor center to use their cold bathroom because they closed the one in the campground for the winter.. . Quite annoying. We then drove to see General Sherman. That is the largest living thing on earth. We also checked out a little museum they had about Sequoias and the park that was well put together.
On our way down the mountain, Lucy came up and laid on the dash. First time she's done that and it was a super windy road. She is seeming to get much more used to the driving.
We are now on our way into town to find a place where Toan will be able to rent a car to drive back to Sacramento to catch his flight out. It will be a nice break after Toan's 20 miles and our 28 miles of hiking over the last few days.
-Miranda

CLICK FOR VIDEO:Lucy Riding on the Dash


An old, burned out sequoia that is a natural tunnel. Their roots are very shallow, though they spread out a lot, so snow storms and wind storms can knock them down. Especially if they are severally scarred from fires. Which most of the sequoias we saw had a triangular fire scar at the bottom. A fire rarely takes out a mature sequoia.

General Sherman.

Lucy looking out the passenger side window when we were in a parking lot.



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Lots of Photos 
Here are a number of photos starting in the Oregon caves to our drive to Sacramento. While going down highway 101, there was a road you could take that went basically parallel to the highway called the "Avenue of Giants". We took that. It was a very pretty drive. Lots of big trees.
-Miranda


Some formations in th marble, Oregon Cave. Very neat looking.

Joe sitting on the burl of a Redwood.

The largest Redwood we saw. It was in Stout Grove. It's probably about 16 feet in diameter.

Yes, we are standing in the tree. The bark is very resistant to fire, so after many forest fires, it will typically make a hole in the bark and the fire eats away the dead inside. The outside, right under the bark, is living, so even though the bottom of the tree is partially hollowed out the tree still lives and stands.

An elk we saw as we came into Elk Prairie State Park.

There is a town named Miranda along the Avenue of Giants. :)


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Ooops Lava Beds Photos 
Okay, so I didn't realize how long it had been since I took the photos off of my camera. These four are from the Lava Beds National Monument. I still haven't gotten the photos off of Joe's camera so I'm not doing the Oregon Caves photos or Redwood's photos until I get the ones from there. :)

-Miranda


A lake nearby the monument. Yes, all those black spots are birds.

A, I think, young Red Tail Hawk that was flying by the RV.

This was an area called the Devil's Homestead. The black below is an old lava flow. The mountains in the distance are volcanoes. I thought it was so neat that they all dipped on the top instead of being pointed like normal mountains are.

These little lizards were all over the park. This one sat nicely on a post while I took it's picture.

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