People meeting and bird watching in California

     The last third of our 2012 California trip was less site seeing and more visiting with friends and relatives. But there were a couple of things that might be of general interest. Particularly read on for the bird photos.

Death Valley National Park: our third visit.

Teloscope Peak reflected in Badwater Creek, floor of Death Valley.

    On two previous trips to California we have visited Death Valley National Park, but it has been a while since we have been there. I think Death Valley is another one of those sort of secret places to visit. Most people, especially those in the Midwest or East of the country,  don't associate it with beauty or fun activities. They just think it is a desert place where you could die. And indeed, in summer that is the case. But in winter, the temperatures are in the 60s and 70s during the day with brilliant cloudless skies and down to 50s usually at night. And there are really dozens of things to do and see. Temperatures of course are lower in the higher elevations bordering the Valley itself.

Our January California Trip

  It has been four years since we have traveled to California in the winter. For some years we made this trip almost every winter since our younger son lives in Irvine, CA. I am not sure how 4 years have gone by without a trip there, but it probably relates to the number of other places in the world that we have visited in the last years. At any rate, we made it this year.  We usually have a need to escape the Wisconsin winter. However, this year we have not really had a winter -- just of snow here and there, and some days in the 40s, even with sun. However, the day before we were to leave, winter decided to appear. One to two inches of light snow prediction was changed to 7-8 inches of snow prediction when a dry arctic front joined up with a moisture laden front coming up from the Gulf of Mexico. When we heard this prediction change on Thursday morning we quickly made reservations at the Airport Hilton in Chicago and called our limo driver to take us down to O'Hare on Thursday instead of Friday AM at 5:30 AM which had been our original intent. It was snowing for part of our drive down to O'Hare but we beat the worst of it. At O'Hare there were about 400 canceled flights on Thursday. By Friday morning the airport was cleaned out and our flight was on time but the freeways were a mess. We had made a very good decision and we made it out to CA easily. Click Read More to read about our route and see photos.