In April, I flew to Pasadena to give an invited talk and to meet up with my friend Wendy. I don't have any pictures to share about the talk, but I did get some shots of the area.

After my talk, I went for a drive in the mountains above JPL. The view from the curvy, climbing road was breathtaking -- alternating light and shadow from the clouds overhead. I was tempted to stop at almost every bend, to take pictures of the vistas. I did stop several times, and here are my three favorite shots:

Wendy arrived later that day and we hung out with her friend Ryan. Here's Wendy at her computer, in the hotel room, a bit blurry because I wasn't using the flash. If only she were better at holding still. Tsk!

The next day, we headed down to the beach. We drove up the coast to Point Dume, a beach I've enjoyed visiting before. I also turned on the microphone on my camera for the first time, so you can not only see but also hear us as we romped around on the beach. :) For me, the sound quality is quite a bit degraded when I listen to it through my browser (versus playing the file locally). I hope that this is just a result of my setup and not the case for you as well.

Listen		Listen		Listen

Building our sand-city was definitely a highlight. We also climbed around on the rocks to the beach to the south which is more scenic (less of a sandy waste) but also had less exposed sand; perhaps it was high tide.

	Listen

Exhausted from our hours in the sun, we drove back down the coast and located a great Italian place for a lunch/dinner. Due to the intermediate hour (it was about 3 or 4 p.m.) we had the place mostly to ourselves. Great food! Outside the restaurant, I stopped to take a picture of this house and to gawk at the paragliders above us.

My flight home flew right over Lake Powell, so I couldn't resist taking some shots. It's amazing how you lose almost all sense of vertical relief from the plane's altitude. You also cannot see much sign of vegetation. It's interesting to consider that water carved these channels originally, flowing down into the Colorado River, and now water has filled them back up from the other direction, obliterating the original carvings and burying them beneath the water's surface.