Where have you been?

So this is the famous "the River." The whole concept is a bit difficult to explain, and a summary would be like this. A mobile home park located twenty six miles from the closest town in the middle of the desert along a river. Doesn't really sound impressive but the River is absoultely fantastic. In the photo above you can see some of the toys available including the boat, the dune buggie (not a $65k one), one of the quads, plus a few of the little kid bicycles.


In the summer (or in March as in this picture), when its hot, you can lay by the water soaking up some rays. Temperatures can reach well over 100F (37C) in the summer but we 'only' had 80F (30C) while we were there. In Poland at the same time it would be an excellent day if the temperature reached 53F (12C).


Dispite the normal image the desert is actually quite beautiful. In this picture, taken from the boat, we can see some of the far off distant mountains.


Here is a photo taken from the boat.


And here is one of the palm trees on the beach. I have included this photo for everyone from Warsaw. This is what a real palm tree looks like, not some cheap ass plastic thing you put in the middle of an intersection.

"Back when I was young" a dune buggy was a simple affair, a VW motor, some seats, and a tubular frame to hold it all together. Some of the more impressive ones had beefed up motors perhaps with a turbo kit. Today things are somewhat different and if you invest sixty five thousand dollars into your buggy your friends probably won't even be impressed. The one in the photo above had close to three hundred horse power not to mention the "freedom" paint job and was for sale for $65,000! Sixty five thousand dollars? Sure, I'll take two.


One red and one gray please. Now some of you may ask "Why do you need a sixty five thousand dollar toy?" And thats a good question. The answer is quite simple though, utility. Say your buddy needs a beer but is on the other side of the canal. Do you A) walk around and take the chance that the beer is warm when you give it to him or do you B) just jump the mother fucker and hand him an ice cold frosty one? Simple as you can see in this video:



Your buddy gets a cold beer and you get all the chicks (even though they know you are compensating for a small penis - hey, you got money so why not!). The other aspect of dirt madness is in the form of motorcycles, both two wheelers and quads. Just put on a fat sand tire and you are good to go. Below we can see a troop of bikers hunting for a bargain or getting some refreshments at one of the desert oasses. I love it when random people smile or wave to the camera (like the guy in this photo).

As we headed East into the desert we eventually came to the Imperial Sand Dunes BLM Recreation & Wilderness Area, otherwise known as Glamis. This is a huge (and half closed) recreational area for dune buggies and motorcycles. The dunes extend for about fourty miles (about seventy kilometers)! Again, there is nothing like this in Europe and the closest dunes would probably be the Sahara Desert in North Africa.

Here are some pictures of us with the huge dunes in the background. If you look carefully you can see the tracks left by the various dune buggies and what not that had been ripping across the dunes that day.

In posting these photos I just realized that I should Photoshop these two together so it looks as if we are standing next to each other. Watch out for that photo soon!

Having said good bye to San Diego (San Marcos actually) and stocked up at WalMart, we headed out. We drove through the Cleveland National Forest which had been decimated by wild fire only several months before. As you can see from the photo above things were calm while we were there but from the damage we could see it did not look like it was a pleasant experience for any of the communities involved.

Once we passed through the Cleveland NF we reached, well, nothing. We had reached the desert - the simply vast emptiness. Every European with whom I have traveled to the desert has been utterly amazed and my girlfriend was no exception. She could hardly believe that there was so much land with absolutely nothing on it! "You could," she said, "see for kilometers with nothing, absolutely nothing, in sight." She was also amazed (like my other European friend) with the cacti. Above you can see her posing with a very large example as well as her in the vast nothingness of the California desert.

Below you can see some photos that my girlfriend really likes.

Thats right baby, Walmart. Before we left San Diego and headed to the desert we stocked up on supplies at America's favorite store.

After our fun with animals and fish the two previous days, we decided to give Mexicans a go and we headed down to Tijuana just across the Mexican border. After parking our car on the American side and walking over the landmark footbridge which crosses the automobile border, we passed through the one-way turnstiles and were in Mexico! My girlfriend was very excited about the whole trip and was amazed to actually see the three meter security fence complete with cameras, lights, and of course razor-wire. Nothing says unity like turning the "friendship park" into a DMZ. Click here!


In general TJ is a pretty dirty town like many of the other border towns that cater to tourists. Cheap drugs (both legal and illegal), discos, strip-clubs, brothels, and normal shopping areas, everything you could want is on sale in these little towns. TJ has progressed in the several years since I had last been there and as you can see in this photo there is even a Carl's Jr hamburger joint.

As you walk from America into TJ towards Revolution (the main tourists street) you cross a nasty urban river (above). This little map (bottom picture) is helpful in showing first time visitors the way because, at least before, wandering into the wrong areas is not recommended in border towns. Point in case: while we were walking along Revolution we saw some para-military unit drive past in a big SUV complete with black clothing and masks, and automatic weapons. The ones without masks didn't look to friendly. Then, about ten minutes later we saw a 'normal' military unit drive past in a large truck. They were in camo but also had automatic weapons. Additionally we saw about three police cars plus motorcycle cops and even cops walking the beat. All that before 11am on a Wednesday!


After all that police/military/Federales action we decided to have a bite to eat. Naturally we chose Mexican and we were not disappointed with the food. Excellent and at a great price!


For some reason there is a jai-ali museum at the top of Revolution. I am not really sure why but hey, why not?

Here are some photos from the aquariums at Sea World. The aquariums are not as nice as the ones at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps but they are still pretty cool.

The last photo on the right is one of my favorites. Not only can you see the ass-end of some fish but you can also see my sweetie in the reflection with our ('my' really) new photographic toy. Its an 8.1 megapixel Nikon Coolpix S51. Mine isn't the lame black one but rather a sweet magenta (pink) one. I have a matching pink case. I am really happy with the quality of the photos it takes as well as the movies. Maybe I'll eventually post some of the movies here but if you see a photo with DSCN in the filename then its from this camera. For example, from the pictures above the lion fish, tiger sharks, jelly fish, and star fish are all photos from the S51.

Here is a cute picture of us at the Shamu show (above) along with the show itself (below). The show was not as good as the dolphin one plus something wierd happens at the beginning. Before the show starts the announcer asks that all miltary personel and veterans please stand up so the rest of the crowd can show their appreciation for the heroic sevice, dedication, et ctera of the military people.

Okay, thats not so wierd, but you have to think that the show goes on maybe five times a day, every day of the year - thats a lot of appreciation. Even thats not bad - the military personel do make many sacrifices for our freedoms. Why do Anheuser-Busch have to push this on us though? Perhaps to compensate for selling products that ruin families? Even this is not the wierd part.

The weierd part was when my girlfiend told me that it reminded her of the good ol' days of Communist Poland. When the government wanted to celebrate something the people were required to show up and support whatever was going on. When the announcer asked which country they loved the only answer was the People's Republic of Poland. Period.

I wonder what would happen if someone didn't applaud? I bet the result is similar to when you don't wear an American Flag lapel pin...

There is a sweet viewing area where the orca sleeping areas and the "Dine with Shamu" restaurant are located and these pictures are from there. We showed up right after one of the main Shamu shows so it was pretty empty (plus it was lunch time so there was a DWS show going on). The picture above is a composit of two others.





Wow, what a night of football. Germany beat by Croatia and Poland robbed of a victory because of the poor rules that FIFA and UEFA keep. There was nothing wrong with the call, he pulled the guy down by the shirt and thats a foul. It was in the box so it should have been a penalty kick. Simple. Except for the fact that calls are so subjective and basically up to the referee at the time. The biggest problem I have with football is that everyone has the "eh, its all even in the end" attitude. So the basis of the rules is that the referee will make enough mistakes in applying the rules so that the game, while poorly refereed, will be fair? Intersting attitude towards something called the Beautiful Game.

Under the Ray petting area you can look up into the bottom of the tank/pond/whatever you want to call it. There are several more types of marine life in there besides the rays.

Anyone just watch the impressive win Croatia got over Germany? The Germans looked frustrated from the get-go and ended with a red card. Well done Croatia. Now time to see what Poland can do against Austria.

One place my girlfriend thought was fantastic was the stringray petting area. You can walk up and feed or pet the animals as much as you like.


Here we can see a zoom of my girlfriend enjoying the company of one of the aforementioned rays.


And these pictures make me laught because there is basically a bunch of moms and dads standing with their little kids who are petting the rays and then there is my girlfriend. She is just like a big kid - pretty cute...

The best part of Sea World IMHO was the penguin house. I was a bit worred that I would not have any good photos because of the museum-like lighting conditions. Fortunately (again IMHO) I got some good ones!






Who's watching Euro 2008? The Portuguese started strong, Poland started flat, and both host countries lost. No matter how well or poor the Polish side do the real question is whether or not the country will have its act together and five (or was it six) new stadiums bulit in time for Euro 2012. Here is an interesting article that holds Poland and Ukraine were awarded Euro 2012 not because of merit but because the old UEFA director wanted to stick it to the new one. Nice...