This interchange is world renowned for being the WORST EVER!

I got to drive by it every single day.
(Of course this picture was taken mid-morning, so there was no traffic)

The dean came to chill with us:

Aren't we all just one big happy family?

(The second time in the semester all these people were together!)

The day before our last final (EVER for me!), a few of us went to Malibu beach.

It was a beautiful day...

Aside from the graffiti on the sign!

Check us totally out!

Doesn't this look like a Corona ad?

Whoah, dude!

Ben, Todd and I went to San Francisco for a couple days after we finished our finals and papers and the like...

First stop, Sequoia National Park to see some big trees!

And some picturesque mountain scenery

Apparently the largest living thing on EARTH!

Some big trees, eh?

Then to San Francisco!

We met up with Robin, a friend of Mom's from college.

She took us to all kinds of cool places that we wouldn't see on the standard tours!

And she set good examples for us...

"Authorized vehicles only... Now that's a nice suggestion, but..."

This is the National Guard dude that was in charge of keeping us from having fun and taking nice pictures at this fort. Good ol' paranoia! I mean national security!

Then we saw some smelly lazy noisy sea lions... as Todd said, wet dogs.

Tell me why I took this picture and you get a prize!

My new desktop background!

The next day, we got up really early and drove to Monterey to see the aquarium

Then we spent the rest of the day driving down Hwy 1 along the coastline of California...

Pictures just don't do the scenery justice. But this was still awesome!

Damn, Ben's a strong guy!

That's not the only thing Ben put in the ocean that day!

Are you scared yet?

A couple days later, my Mommy came to California too! We picked her up from the airport and went straight to the beach to rent bikes and ride along the ocean!

We stopped off at Pacific Palisades...

Look at us being strong.

On the drive home, we stopped by the Grand Canyon

It was significantly warmer this time around!

So we decided to hike down into it... If only for an hour or so...

As you can see, it was really cool!

Jealous, yeah?

We met this guy named Lynn when we hiked down...

He was celebrating his 60th birthday by hiking to the Colorado River!
He'd done this before, so he was a cool tour guide.

When we left the canyon, we got to see this in front of us for about an hour!

After our hike, we high-tailed it all the way to Amarillo, TX that day. The next day we made it from Amarillo all the way home with just one stop. Yes, a 12 hour drive with one stop. Stupid gas tank needing refueling! The end.

If you missed the last installments of Cali pictures: page 1 2 3 4