As usual, I took pictures. Di Yin also took some. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #219 in the album). If you're in slide-show mode and see a picture of Simon dropping us off at the airport, you've cycled back to the beginning of her album and are back at the beginning of our trip. I've already linked to those pictures.
This post is simply an outline of sights covered in more depth in my pictures.
On this day I seriously started following my policy of a pastry a day for breakfast when in Paris. First, I had to find a bakery open on a Sunday morning. This actually wasn't as difficult as you'd guess; I found one named Beatrix (in some places referred to as Beatrix Sylvie et David) two blocks from my apartment.
After breakfast, Di Yin and I explored more of the Les Halles neighborhood, which we began exploring the previous day. One spot we visited was Saint Merry church. Because it was mass, I didn't take pictures inside, but I do want to mention that the thing in the church that I most wished I could photograph was its large, fancy wooden pulpit. The church also has stained glass and a notable, large, starburst above the altar.
After Les Halles, we ventured again into Le Marais, which we explored slightly a few days earlier. Le Marais is a historic neighborhood with many eighteenth-century mansions now converted into museums.
On the opposite side of the Le Marais, we found (as planned) the market on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. It's a huge market, with dozens of butchers, fishmongers, vegetable and fruit sellers, and cheese shops. It also has regular market stuff (purses, clothes, etc.). It's several blocks long and two or three aisles wide.
After the market, we headed back through the Le Marais, this time taking a route that passed through the Jewish Quarter, a several-blocks region within this neighborhood. We had lunch at a joint in the Jewish Quarter.
After lunch, we briefly stopped by home to drop off our market goods, then took a quick train ride down to the Latin Quarter, the most bohemian district in Paris. We decided Rue Saint Michel, the large throughway through the district, wasn't too exciting. Di Yin and I prefer the tangled, lively side-streets. They have more personality.
We walked around and finished the Latin Quarter, then explored the east side of the neighborhood around Saint Germain des Pres, the neighborhood that we walked through a different part of during our Louvre day. Saint Germain des Pres is an interesting neighborhood; it's like the Latin Quarter (which it adjoins) but less crowded and less dense and therefore with no people on the street pushing us to go in a restaurant. Incidentally, this quarter has some pot smokers. They're noticeable, but certainly not as many as in Portland.
We began hunting for dinner. In addition to the types of restaurants I described on my last visit to the Latin Quarter, we spotted some places serving Lebanese pizza (a.k.a. sajj). Sajj is cooked on top of a hemispherical metal dome, a cooking method I hadn't seen before. We also spotted an intriguing Tunisian sweet store.
Nevertheless, we decided we didn't want to eat in the Latin Quarter: every restaurant seems to be too actively recruiting tourists (the majority of the people around), not depending on regulars.
We didn't like my guidebook's nearby choices in Saint Germain des Pres either, so we followed Di Yin's nose, ending at a North African restaurant, Le Boomerang. Incidentally, it was only during this hunting that we encountered our first cobblestone street in Paris. Given the quantity of walking that we do, I guess they're remarkably rare.
After dinner we headed home.
By the way, Sunday must be the day for movies in Paris: we saw multiple lines for tickets, some stretching more than a block.
Paris: May 15: Les Halles, Le Marais, Jewish Quarter, Latin Quarter, and more
Paris: May 14: Market Day, plus Les Halles
This ended up being a day spent mainly at markets.
We slept twelve hours the previous night recovering from our jetlag. Once up, it was almost time for lunch. We headed to the market that we found closed when we tried to visit it the previous day. This day it was open when we arrived.
At this time, I also opened my shutter and started taking pictures.
Di Yin also took many pictures. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #121 in the album). When you see a picture captioned "Sunday morning" (picture #219), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.
The Marche (market) des Enfants Rouges is the oldest covered market in Paris, having started in the early part of the 17th century. The market, though not particularly large, has stands of most types: meat, seafood, vegetables, cheese, wine, baked goods, flowers, and prepared/hot food. Our assessment from the previous day that the market has a disproportionate number of cooked food stands for its size was accurate. We decided to have part of our lunch at one of them.
After finishing our lunch, we took the subway north of the city to Marche aux Puces St-Ouen de Clignancourt, Paris's largest conglomeration of flea markets. When I say flea market, don't think junk--many of these businesses sell new products or high-quality antiques. Also, nothing is cheap. The prices are the same you'd pay in a regular store.
By the way, I didn't take any photographs in the markets. Di Yin took a lot though; look at hers.
These markets (yes, multiple markets) are spread throughout a maze of streets. They seemed endless. Some markets were along major roads; other entwined through clearly pre-existing alleys; others were in long, straight lanes designed for this purpose. The businesses in these markets came in various forms: stalls, tents, booths, stands, stores within shopping arcades, or members of long rows of ten-foot by ten-foot shops. Clearly the lowest on the totem pole are the guys who stand under a highway overpass, hands full of stuff for sale: sunglasses, watches, jewelry. "Not expensive, not expensive," they call in French.
The low-end venues sell everything, mainly clothing and accessories. The high-end ones mostly sell furniture and home decor. Often these are antiques (from, according to my guidebook, the Second Empire). A couple shops made me gasp due to their density of impressive, ornate, sometimes rococo, chandeliers. I think these were in the Biron Market. In other markets, some shops have North African goods such as hookahs, tajine pots, carpets, and statues.
Di Yin and I both most enjoyed the tangled, uncrowded streets of the Vernaison Market and its eclectic selection. (I spotted some 100-year-old Parisian newspapers, for instance.)
By the way, the population in the neighborhood around Clignancourt is more diverse than in any other region I visited in the city during my trip. That's probably because it's poorer.
After browsing our fill, we took the train back to near our apartment. We decided to walk around part of a neighborhood near us: Les Halles. I took out my camera again. The pictures document our wandering fairly well. On Rue Montorguiel, a high-quality food shop street, we bought ingredients for dinner and came home to cook and eat. Interestingly, it turned out the fruits we bought--peaches and strawberries--were super tasty. Over the next few days, we got to calling the strawberries super-strawberries because they burst with so much flavor that they dominated the taste of whatever they were paired with. They had more strawberry flavor than anything I've bought from the farmers markets in California.
After dinner we headed out again to do some exploring before nightfall. We explored a bit more of Les Halles as night fell and wandered through Ile da la Cite and the Latin Quarter at night. The Latin Quarter was lively and packed with people. Once it got dark, I stopped being able to take pictures. This wasn't a great loss as I knew we explore those areas during the daytime at some point, and there'd be plenty of opportunity for pictures.
Paris: May 13: The Louvre
I took many pictures this day. Di Yin also took some, though fewer than usual because her camera ran out of batteries and she had to borrow mine every time she wanted to take a picture. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #49 in the album). When you see a picture captioned "Day 3" (picture #121), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.
A bit jetlagged, we awoke and took a nice early-morning stroll to a nearby market. However, at the time we arrived (8:30am), the market wasn't yet open. Nevertheless, we could tell it had a good selection of prepared food stalls and would be a good destination for a meal when they were open. Indeed, a week later we had lunch at the market. But this time, instead, we ate breakfast at a nearby cafe with a nice Parisian atmosphere.
We decided to use our first full day in Paris to go to the Louvre. Partially this was because people say to get to the Louvre around when it opens (and we were already up early), and partially this was because I knew the Louvre is open late on Fridays (this day) and hence we'd have tons of time of see everything we wanted to see.
The Louvre covers art and antiquities from the ancient world up through the mid/late 1800s. (Other museums in Paris cover more recent art.) Yes, that's a lot of time! It's as big as the British Museum or the Met, and as intimidating to do in one day. Its collection especially includes countless Greek, Roman, and Etruscan statues and innumerable European paintings covering many centuries, and also Egyptian artifacts and European decoration arts. And yes, they have the big names you'd expect in paintings: a room of Rembrandts, another of Renoirs, another of Corots.
The Louvre is notable to me because, of all the museums I've visited, it has the best views as one glances out the windows and glimpses the Louvre's external architecture. It's not notable to me for its collection. The type of stuff it shows is not my cup of tea.
I was warned the Louvre would be crowded. I generally agree the warning was right. And this was on a weekday morning in May! I can't imagine what it would be like on a weekend in the height to tourist season. However, when I later got to parts of the Louvre away from its five or so most famous pieces and away from the routes to those pieces, it became more comfortable, reasonably uncrowded like a normal museum. But those masterpieces were crowded! The crowd around the Mona Lisa was so thick that, even though people weren't supposed to use flashes, flashes went off accidentally regularly and the guards had given up trying to correct people.
Incidentally, the Louvre first opened to the public in 1793, making it older than what I thought was the oldest museum, the V&A Museum in London. I later realized a number of museums in Paris were founded at the tail end of the eighteenth century.
I paid for the audio guide but found it icky. The masterpieces tour skips too much, yet doesn't say enough about the pieces it considers. The other pre-programmed tours are actually lists of detailed things to listen to on particular routes. I wish it was easier to find audio details regardless of any selected tour, but the interface for this was clunky. If I was in a particular place (not intentionally following a route), trying to figure out if any of the tours have information on the room or any pieces within it was nearly impossible. To determine if any of the routes passed through a particular area, one had to trace each route on the device one by one, a painstaking process that I only tried once.
Or maybe all this is just rationalization when my main problem was that I found the commentary uninteresting.
Or maybe my poor impression of the guide stems from bitterness--my audio guide froze twice, requiring long treks to the entrance to get it replaced.
I had a much better experience when I finally gave up on the audio guide and walked around with Di Yin. She's a great tour guide.
The Louvre has few informative signs, and practically none are translated into English. Sure, there were laminated handouts in English for each room, but these were a pain to deal with.
We took a mid-day break from the museum for lunch. We walked over the Pont du Carrousel bridge and into the Saint Germain des Pres neighborhood. We ate at Le Petit Saint Benoit.
After lunch, we stopped by the Musee (museum) Eugene Delacroix, mainly because we got free admission with our ticket for the Louvre. Eugene Delacroix is a nineteenth-century painter. This small museum is housed in his three-room apartment and adjacent three-room studio. Di Yin really liked the space. I thought in retrospect the main justification for the visit was not the art but the attractive small garden in the back.
On the way back to the Louvre, we passed many art galleries on Rue de Seine. The density is probably related to being on the left bank yet in close proximity to the Louvre.
Once back at the Louvre, we explored the two current special exhibits. The exhibit on Rembrandt's images of Christ was not often my thing, but the emotionality of Rembrandt's paintings made them engaging. The other exhibit showed Claude Lorrain's drawings, drawings by "the greatest landscape painter of his era" (the 17th century, when landscape painting was starting to get popular in Rome). In this exhibit I discovered I like Lorrain's paintings better than his drawings. (They had a few paintings on display despite the exhibit being focused on his drawings.) Later in the regular collection I spotted one of his paintings and liked it enough to photograph it.
After the temporary exhibits, we went back to exploring the Louvre.
We ended up spending a ton of time in the museum: we arrived shortly after opening (say, 9:20am), left for lunch and other stuff around 1:00pm, returned at 4:00pm, and finally left at 8:20pm. (We were lucky the museum stays open late on Fridays.) Nevertheless, we skipped some rooms including a whole floor of a wing. We also only visited many rooms by walking through them without slowing.
This was the most time I've ever spent in museums in one day. In this case, basically all the time was spent in a single museum. It was too much.
From the museum, we walked through Les Halles on the way home. The area has some large squares with many people hanging out, but it's less appealing than it could be because of the large number of fast food restaurants nearby and consequently the type of people who choose to hang out there. On another day, however, I walked through the area again and decided it wasn't as seedy as it at first appeared. My impression was colored because I just wanted to get home.
We ate at Le Hangar, a cute bistro near our apartment. It felt like a secret place, hidden as it is down what appears to be empty alley and around the corner so as to be concealed from the street. It homey as well: we were served by a mother-daughter pair. There were other waitresses too. As usual, details are in the pictures, but I should say that it was another satisfying meal. We left full but not stuffed.
And thus concluded a more than 14 hour day exploring Paris.
Paris: May 12: Le Marais, part one
Di Yin and I decided to explore a bit of Paris on the day we arrived. It would help us get on local time. It was a beautiful day. We decided to look around our neighborhood, Le Marais, a bit as we headed for an early dinner.
I took pictures. Di Yin also took some. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day after we went out exploring (picture #12 in the album). When you see a picture captioned "Day 2" (picture #49), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.
We found a local grocery and, next door, a beautifully-fresh fruit-and-vegetable market. On another day we'd find a supermarket even closer to home. We also stopped by countless bakeries to admire their remarkably attractive pastries. (I say countless because, yes, there were so many of these that I lost count.) A few of these bakeries would supply my pastry breakfasts later in the trip.
We also found a glass sculpture shop: very pretty. I especially liked the mock aquariums: balls of glass with colorful glass fish embedded within. At 300-500 euros, these were the cheapest items on display in this shop! Other shops, such as jewelry shops, were likewise unexpectedly expensive.
On the walk, we stopped by the only remaining medieval cloister in Paris. It was nothing special, as was the art exhibit it was holding (of sculptures of wild cats). The church next door, though with rather nondescript architecture, was worth the stop because someone was playing the organ.
We ended up having dinner at Les Philosophes. Although we didn't know it until after we sat down, the restaurant emphasizes the use of locally grown, sustainably grown, organic ingredients. We enjoyed our meal, and actually ended up eating there two more times during our stay in Paris. See the pictures for details on the meal.
Paris: May 11: En Route To Paris
Thanks to S providing a lift, getting to the airport was easy. Check-in was also easy.
We killed a bit of time in the airport by viewing an exhibit on Josef Frank (other links: international terminal exhibits, exhibit photos), an Austrian who lived in the middle of the 20th century and designed furniture and textiles, most with nature themes. I took out my camera to take some pictures and get in the habit of taking pictures for Paris. Di Yin also took pictures. The latter link goes to her first picture from this trip (picture #1 in the album). When you see a picture of Di Yin lying down to get over her jetlag (picture #11), you're done with her pictures for this post. I'll link her later pictures in the following post.
We got to Paris via two flights. The first flight, on KLM, was brutal. There was a large guy in the middle seat next to me; I thought the stewards kept the plane too hot; I couldn't get comfortable (the seat was poorly designed); I found the personal TV frustrating because I had trouble hearing the actors' voices above the background noise (I think the bass-treble balance was off).
We transferred in Amsterdam to our Air France flight to Paris. This flight was shorter and easier.
Upon landing, we transferred to the metro to get to our apartment. We didn't even have to clear customs--apparently the customs we went through in the Netherlands sufficed. Someone on the train played a violin for our entertainment in a style that sounded like a fiddle.
Incidentally, during our stay in Paris we noticed that on trains near tourist sites we'd sometimes be musically entertained ... usually by an accordion!
Our landlord was waiting for us at our apartment. He turned out to be friendly, and the place was nice. By the way, I took pictures of the apartment; I'll post them with the following blog entry.
Di Yin and I took a nap, then headed out exploring.
Paris Overview
I spent nearly two weeks with Di Yin in Paris in May 2011, leaving the bay area on Wednesday, May 11, and returning on Tuesday, May 24.
I enjoyed my trip.
There is no feature that always comes to mind when I think of Paris. Rather, my memory of Paris is colored by an assortment of facets that each slightly distinguish it from other cities I've visited. These features are French food (more on that later), the people-watching/cafe scene (again, details later), the Seine, and Paris's size.
When I think about Paris, I'll frequently think of the Seine. It's central to the city. One might guess this oft-encountered geological feature would be an obstacle but it's not. Its countless bridges make it easy to cross wherever you are. Furthermore, it's a pleasant place to stroll along. The Seine always has footpaths on both sides of the river. Indeed, there are often multiple walkways on each side, one at water-level and one at street-level higher above. Thus, in contrast to London's Thames, the Seine is prettier, narrower, and much more welcoming to walkers, picnickers, and whatnot-ers.
Transportation
Paris feels like a compact city. I think it feels small because it invites walking. The Seine is a nice place to walk along on your way somewhere, and it's easily found, whether intentionally or not. Also, in Paris areas with large streets and many cars have relatively wide sidewalks. Areas with narrow streets tend to have no traffic so it doesn't matter how wide those sidewalks are.
I think Paris feels compact because the metro stations are close together. Metro stations are placed about five or maybe seven minutes walking apart. No matter where you are, you can get to a station in a couple of minutes and be rapidly on your way to another part of the city. This also means that if someplace we wanted to visit was two or three stops away, we'll often walk it rather than take the train. After all, we're only talking about twenty minutes and, beside, we'll get to enjoy the weather outside and see more of the city this way.
Nevertheless, we regularly used Paris's metro system. It's every bit as complex and comprehensive as London's. My only complaint about the system is that the subway transfers require a lot of walking, especially in stations where more than two lines cross. Indeed, if we were in a major transfer station and simply wanted to transfer to take the other line one stop, we found it more efficient to walk to the next station rather than transfer and take the train.
Trains run often (every couple minutes). Once, we got off a train at the end of the platform farthest from the exit. By the time we walked to the other end of the platform, the next train had arrived.
Some of the metro system lines use trains but others use vehicles that look and feel like trains but have big wheels. Only at certain stations can you manage to see the bottom of the cars and notice the difference. Regardless, for getting on and off metro vehicles, one has to press a button or flip a lever to trigger the doors to open. The vehicles respond to these actions before reaching a complete stop. That is, the doors can open while the train's still slowing down in a station. It's a bit scary.
I also should say that, though Paris is more pedestrian-friendly than any American city, it's not as pedestrian-friendly as Barcelona. Paris also doesn't have anything like Barcelona's Old Town, a whole neighborhood with a ton of personality and a tangled mess of pedestrian-only streets.
Incidentally, Paris has the same bicycle rental system that I spotted in Barcelona, where one can check out a bike from most metro stations and return it at any other bike station. We saw many people on these bikes.
Paris's Look
Paris has the same predominance of grand buildings as London. At first I thought these buildings tended toward Gothic architecture (I made a note regarding this halfway through my trip) but I realized later that it's a false impression--it's simply that the neighborhoods we tended to be in at the beginning of our trip were built in the Middle Ages and hence had lots of Gothic churches. Other areas in Paris have other types of architecture, including grand Federalist or Roman-style buildings (grand colonnades and all that) and churches in a variety of styles.
Paris has the same wrought-iron balconies that I enjoyed seeing everywhere in Barcelona but didn't see much in Rome.
Paris doesn't have London's density of small, cute squares and parks.
The left (south) bank is livelier and more diverse than the right bank, though the right bank isn't a slouch (I'm just making a comparative statement). Likewise, the left bank has more cultural features such as bookstores.
Regarding bookstores, the book industry in Paris is like nowhere else I've been. Virtually all the bookstores in Paris are used bookstores with a disorganized feel that's somehow appealing. They stock old books (not merely "used" books). Furthermore, the handful of new-book bookstores I spotted are on specialized topics (Tahiti, art, anthropology, etc.). I didn't see any large, clean, modern, general-purpose bookstores like Barnes and Noble.
Sometimes we'd see military men in combat fatigues with submachine guns patrolling the streets. This seemed normal to everyone (other pedestrians, the military men) and did not make us nervous in the least.
Food
Di Yin and I enjoyed the food, though I not quite as much as the food in Rome.
My trip to Paris changed my image of French food; I learned that my image of French food as involving complex, heavy sauces is kind of wrong. We ate often in bistros. The dishes we were served let the taste of the ingredients shine through. There was little to no use of spices or seasoning. Di Yin says Paris taught her the appeal of cooking things gently and of cooking things in generous amounts of butter.
In addition to French restaurants, we often saw restaurants serving food from the south coast of the Mediterranean. I mostly mean restaurants serving North African and Middle Eastern food (especially Moroccan, Tunisian, and Lebanese). Given France's colonial presence in these areas, none of this is surprising. We also saw some Greek and Turkish restaurants as well.
What is surprising is the number of Japanese restaurants we spotted. They're pretty common--certainly much more common than I expected--and they looked respectable.
Overall, Paris seems to be a somewhat culinarily diverse city (certainly more so than Barcelona). Though not common, we did notice other cuisines such as Chinese and Indian. I was surprised I didn't see much Vietnamese, as Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos were former French colonies.
Oh, and yes, you can indeed get good bread everywhere. Or at least baguettes: every baguette we had was good. The pastries varied in quality. While I often enjoyed the various pastries I sampled, the croissants, for instance, were not uniformly better than what one can find in the bay area. The handful of good bay area bakeries make better ones than some that I tried in Paris. By the way, savory croissants such as ham and cheese croissants are an American invention--I didn't see a single one in Paris.
Finally, I appreciated that all restaurants have their menus posted outside. It helped us decide where to eat. Also, it turns out this is dependable--it's the law in France.
People Watching
France is on continental Europe's eating schedule, meaning a late lunch, a visit to a cafe for aperitifs in late afternoon, and dinner around eight or nine p.m. at night. This habit of late afternoon drinks (actually, people-watching, as the focus seems to be) appears to be more evolved in Paris than in other European cities (Rome, Barcelona) I've visited.
People-watching is important to Parisians. In late afternoon, sidewalk tables at virtually all cafes we passed would be filled. In America, people sitting in pairs face each other, or at least mostly face each other. In Paris, the pairs sit side by side, each person facing out to the sidewalk to watch the passers-by.
Furthermore, tables inside cafes were universally empty. It's clear the prevalence of late-afternoon aperitifs is not due to the drinks; rather, they're just an excuse to sit and watch the world.
Language
French is the working language. Di Yin spoke French to people and people replied in kind, not attempting to switch back to English. (Maybe Di Yin looks foreign to them, so they didn't know she spoke English.) Even the few times when people later discovered Di Yin speaks English fluently, they were willing to answer Di Yin in French when she spoke French to them. It's clear everyone we talked to was simply more comfortable with French than English.
By the way, between using my Spanish background, recognizing words corrupted into English, and knowing some Latin roots, I could sometimes get the gist of written French (historic plaques, menus, advertisements, etc.). Di Yin of course was much better at this than me.
Miscellaneous
The weather was great. The temperature was in the upper 60s or 70s during our trip. We walked around without jackets. A simple long-sleeve or, sometimes, short-sleeve shirt did fine. The skies were clear most days and, even when they were not, it never rained.
It wouldn't get dark until late (after 9pm), making for long days (sometimes too long) of activities and explorations.
Paris may be as inexhaustible as London and New York City. I'd probably make this comment without the modal caveat ("may") if I could read French. As it is, some of the secondary sights, temporary exhibits, etc. are not fully translated into English and thus might not be worth visiting as an English-only speaker.
A historical fact on the rise and fall of the Jesuits: in 1627, King Louis XIII laid the first stone of a Jesuit church in Paris. In 1764, less than 150 years later, the Jesuits were expelled from the country. How's that for a fall from grace?
Monte Bello Open Space Preserve
M, on a rare break from medical residency, briefly visited the bay area with her husband J around the weekend of Sunday, May 8, 2011. I attended their wedding two years prior.
I found out two weeks before that M was pregnant. I imagine this was a last-chance trip before they were to have the baby (and thus not be able to travel for a while). It was also probably my last chance to see them without traveling to Chicago.
Di Yin, M, J, an acquaintance of mine whose name I forget, and someone I never met before whose name I also forget all met up to go on a hike. From the few choices I nominated, we selected to hike in Monte Bello Open Space Preserve. It was a great choice--with varying terrain, it was a true sample of bay area nature.
I took a handful of pictures.
As we walked, we talked. I rarely manage to talk on the phone to M and never hear much from/about J. It was nice to catch up with M and J and get the current scoop.
We hiked for about six miles.
After the hike, we drove into town separately, reuniting (along with a few more of M's friends) at the Palo Alto Creamery for dinner.
Los Angeles: May 1: An Indirect Route Home
After a small snack at home to tide us over, Di Yin and I headed to the day-after-the-wedding brunch at The Peninsula in Beverly Hills. It was a good spread at another fancy, expensive venue. I was impressed they served freshly squeezed grapefruit juice (in addition to fresh orange juice of course). We chatted with all the other guests we'd met the previous night, plus the people in the wedding and the wedding party who were too busy to talk with us the previous day.
After brunch, we began heading home. We drove north on 405 to route 5, but route 5 seemed backed up as it entered the hills so I took the road labeled "14N highway 5 truck detour" under the assumption it would rejoin the 5 later. This was a mistake.
We drove for a while and soon found ourselves in the desert. The landscape was flat, with lots of short, dry grasses and sagebrush, quite a contrast to the green hills one passes through on 5 in the national forest-land north of Los Angeles. We stopped so Di Yin could take pictures of the desert with the San Gabriel mountains in the distance. I wasn't in the mood to take pictures, and didn't end up taking any the entire day. We also passed a field of poppies, the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve, as well as multiple orange fields.
At one place we stopped on 138W (on our way back to the 5), we ended up beset by small bugs. We noticed them only after we returned to the car and discovered many on ours pants' legs. We got out, brushed ourselves off everywhere, and got back in. Over the next ten minutes we killed a dozen and a half more that managed to remain on us--that's a sense of how many must've been there originally. Di Yin said they were weevils.
Here are Di Yin's pictures. The link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #89 in the album). When you see a picture of me in bed, you're done with the pictures from the trip.
Once finally back on highway 5, we headed straight home, stopping for a late dinner in Gilroy (where we discovered a tasty frozen yogurt shop). It appears our detour took an hour longer than the direct route not counting the stops we made to take pictures. Though it was neat to see the desert, I wouldn't have made the trade-off given the choice.
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