Teresita Pines

Hello again! This is Matthew Tran and I am going to blog about Teresita Pines, a place where I went to yesterday, May 7 from 6AM to 9PM. Now I took about 54 pictures, filtered them to 48 on Facebook, and then filtered them again to 22 for this blog. For the full adventure, it is on my Facebook but this post will have more information on how the day went for me and my adventure.

Remember to click the pictures if you want to see a bigger version!

After breakfast, we were to rake pine needles to protect the area in case of a fire. First we were all waiting for the restrooms. Winny and Julie pose for a picture!

 My friends and I are raking the pine needles. Although it is obvious that at this moment I slacked off. But hey, I threw all of those pine cones. Great work I'd say.

Karina and Winny are working together. This is where Winny ran away after Karina said she saw Winny standing next to a giant ant, the size of a finger. Could it be a potato bug? Anyway, our group became 'Team Big Ant'.

 After about an hour or two, more friends joined together to help out on the cleaning! Still hours before lunch. Karina and I wonder constantly about what we will have.

 So, we had croissant sandwiches for lunch! I never had a sandwich using croissant bread before. It was interesting. Anyway, here are my friends eating together on the same table with me.

 We worked again after lunch until 2PM and by 3PM, we began to hike! 14 students including myself went together to find a trail. Don't worry, we got ourselves a chaperon and some of us are already 18.

Interesting that we're all different, don't you think? We got ourselves an environmentalist, a vegetarian, a student performing in drama, a runner, a wrestler, a football player, a friendly student, an Indian, a chaperon, a student from another school, the club leader, a youngster, a journalist, and myself, the adventurer.

The trail is a bit iffy... but we took it anyway. Downhill is pretty dangerous! Luckily, nobody slipped completely.

 Crossing rivers is my favorite part. It is like solving a puzzle - which rock to take? Which ones are slippery? Which one will knock over after stepping on it? It's a risk we all have to take!

 Although I'm not close to Timmy, we are all one group so we must stick together. He was one of the last to struggle across this first river. Juan is in the back, ready to jump it instead of using the rocks along the way.

This is us, our second river. It is interesting to see all of us 14 with different personalities trying to achieve the same goal: crossing the river. This was tougher than the previous because the rocks were slippery and it was much more lengthy. But hey, it is a great image!

And the wrestler who performed as a temporary leader with much enthusiasm. Everyone else is just tired including me although I really wanted to continue.

With only 12 of us remain, now excluding the runner and the drama student, we continue onward to a trail-less area...!

Minutes fly and four more members decided to return to camp. Say byebye to the wrestler, the friendly student, the club president, and the student from another school. Only eight of us remain. On our adventure, we got sort of lost and the chaperon worried about our safety. We found a hollow mushroom which looked like a golf ball and it popped open when Julie steppe don it. The girls ran and screamed, thinking it was a snake egg.

Here I am! I love the open space!

And he believes it is not a kiddy ride.

Three-man totem pole. We returned after about 30 minutes and now we're back at camp for the pools. I only sat on the ledge with my legs in the water.

After the pools, many people were tired and not were willing to hike again. The vegeterian, the environmentalist, and I decided to hike but this time we started at the area upward from our camp instead of downward.

We found a swamp at another camp and it looked abandoned!

We entered the abandoned camp anyway even when it said that it is prohibited. The cabin here had a graffiti'd door and wooden-locked windows. Pretty scary... I have another picture of a rock with an arrow pointing upwards and broken benches nearby that adds on more to the mystery.

We decided to leave after hearing gunshot-like noises twice. Actually we ran back to our own camp. We didn't go back to the camp exactly. We found a new area to explore nearby and it is another swamp with a long bridge!

Julie, Uriel, and I decide to enter the creepy bridge. This is like from the movies. Who knows what may pop out?! There were a bunch of creepy noises.

We passed the bridge and found a dead end that could not lead us back to the camp so we had to go all the way back through the bridge. Oh my geezuhs. One part of the bridge was half broken so we had to take note of it and skip that step.

Walking back, we saw a hut with no door but there was a roof door. Strange...
 

Lastly, here is our effort from earlier in the day.

This is a group photo of all of us from our club at Teresita Pines before leaving. Some of them did a 'shy girl pose'. This photo is credited by Peter Ye. Click for a high-resolution picture.

Overall, this adventure was and still is better than the observatory mainly because there was much more to explore, the scenery is much nicer with a better environment, and I had a lot more friends going with me. Mentioned earlier, I took a bunch of pictures but I filtered some. I am still a deprived child but had a real experience for hiking through difficult obstacles. Although it was not a learning experience, it was an environmental experience and that's really good for me to have. What a great adventure!

Griffith Observatory

Hello everybody! My first adventure for this blog is the Griffith Observatory! It is said that many movies were taken place in this setting. Imagine yourself atop a large hill, and at one end, you can see the sign "HOLLYWOOD" from far away! The other end leads to a beautiful view of an expanded hill of adventure. The last end is directly into the observatory where you get to learn the history of the galaxy. Yes, there are many roads to take, but which one is the best? Who knows, just explore the place! Now let's see what I have done. Captions are above each photo in order.

When our school bus was free to roam, I first took a hike! I'm atop at the hill before going down.

 This is what it is like to go down a hill with tall walls aside of you. This girl seemed excited to hike too.

See that white building in the back? That's where I started. The observatory.

 There was still a lot more to go down to, look! Friends were getting tired and all it looked like was me going down further into nowhere.

 After 30 minutes of walking alllll the way back up, we went into the observatory and found Foucoult Pendulum. It is proof that the Earth is always moving.

 This is what the ceiling looks like above the pendulum! Pretty, isn't it?

I went to the bottom floor and there was a copy of Saturn below me. It is the most unique planet in my opinion.

 Here is where I learned something new. The Tesla Coil! The voltage production here is extremely higher than any other voltage-production. It is nice to just stand there and watch blankly, I promise you.

 I'm at the rooftop of the observatory! This is where the bus stopped at. To the left is "Hollywood" which you can barely see on the hill, and to the right is where I hiked.

 I stood at the rooftop for many minutes in peace. It was peaceful and the people around me were mature and quiet. Look at the pleasant sky...

 After watching a 30-minute movie (I could not take a picture in there, for courtesy!), I went back up to the rooftop to take a picture of Los Angeles. My cellphone is a bad camera but hey, look at all those lights!

Overall, I thought that this first blog adventure was very interesting. I took over 30 pictures but I cut short on my most favorite. I learned so much after reading all the stuff in the observatory. Like I said, I am a deprived child because I can't learn much if I can't go out to faraway places. And here was the proof. I learned too much in a day by going somewhere far, while having fun! BEST method ever for me.

- April 6, 2011; 3:10 PM - 8:50 PM

Where to begin?

Hi, my name is Matthew Tran.

The reason why I began this blog is to present my adventures to you if you feel like keeping up with me. The difference between me and any other adventurer is that all my life I have lived in California, Los Angeles. I am seventeen and still, I have not gone farther than 2 hours away from here. No plane, no train, no subway. Always in a car or bus.

The only adventure I had so far was in 6th grade where I was forced to go camping with my class and wow, I really enjoyed it and wished I could go to fun new places like that everyday. An adventure is not just going to some amusement park such as Six Flags or Knotts, but it is more about the wilderness and new famous places all over the world. I am almost 18 and I am more free to visit anywhere around the world soon enough.

So hey, why not start now? A blog diary of all the places I will go to in the future. My deprived childhood will catch up with everybody else as I grow older. I will experience the world, someday...