"The state of sun and sandy beaches" California by Rusket

This is what most norwegians associate with California, large, sandy beaches. Well, we imagine them full of people, like we have seen on Baywatch ;-) This picture was taken in february, on what I would call a nice, warm day, but apparently the californians do not agree with me.

My uncle emigrated to California in 1926, and had four children. On my first visit in 1997, his widow and my four cousins were all alive, my aunt and my oldest cousin both passed away prior to my second visit in 2001.

Erosion

But California is more than just beaches. Among other things it is also a state of natural disasters. Some of them are abrupt, like eartquakes and forest fires, others more subtle like erosion and (sometimes) land slides.

On this picture we can see that the draught season has started; the vegetation is changing color from green to brown. There is evidence of a minor land slide and erosion, too. In the dry season a small spark, like someone throwing away a cigarette, could be enough to start a fire, and a heavy rainfall would wash out the soil and possibly start a slide.

We experienced a minor earthquake during our first stay. I did not even notice, but my then 6 year old son did, and so did my cousin.

synchronized

California has some of the best athletes of synchronized swimming in the world. The picture shows Stanford University's 1997 team in a competition at Berkely. I was surprised to see how few spectators there were, is american football the only sport worth watching?

While in California we did of course travel around, and saw some of the "usual" sights and som unusual ones. I have made / will make separate pages about some of the places we visited, and tips about some of the things we did. But it will take some time: On our first visit my camera broke down, I shall have to collect pictures taken by others during our stay. The pictures I do have from 1997 are on paper only, I have to scan and edit them.

A list of places we have been: Sacramento, Jamestown, Danville, Orinda, Walnut Creek, Berkely, SF, Monterey, Disneyland, Yosemite, Mohave Desert, Boron ...

• Pros:Sun, varied nature, trains, Disneyland
• Cons:Natural disasters, huge shops, lack of public transportation
• In a nutshell:A nice place to be during winter :-)