We ended up going on some rad adventures this summer, but most of my 360 photography gigs took me to hot and humid climates. The second school starts, I schedule a gig up in Humboldt County. We debated about having them tag along, but I ended up traveling solo. Breakfast at La Joya Cafe was so, so good. Meadow didn't want to miss school, but Theo was all for it.  I flew into SFO and stayed just outside of the city. I had all day to get up to Eureka, so I took my time traversing San Francisco. The weather in San Francisco was gloomy, but that didn't stop me from exploring a new neighborhood, Visitacion Valley. The outlying San Francisco neigborhoods are whole different world from the Victorian row houses and dense core of the city. Viz Valley has such a vibe with the muted pastel pallete. And these ornate gates were everywhere. Something I'd also see in another predominantly Asian neighborhood, Flushing Queens. Almost 60% of the neighborhood is of Asian descent with another...

Well, I'm traveling quite a bit for one of my clients. So I might as well share those adventures. First stop was the Los Angeles metro for a shoot at Compton College. This was my first time visiting Los Angeles and SoCal. So why not go on some aimless walks.   7th grade Brooke is so jealous.  I, on the other hand, have never had a desire to visit LAX. Wasn't really sure where to stay, but ended up settling on Mayumi  in Culver City. Near the airport, not too far from Compton and close to Venice Beach. They even had free bike rentals that unfortunately didn't work with my schedule.  Why do California and Florida mid-century cities and neighborhoods give me the same vibes? After settling in I drove out to the Venice neighborhood because I didn't do any research. I passed by BBQ + Rice driving down Venice Boulevard and it just looked like it fit the bill. Their bulgogi hit the spot. Sure it's a "chain," but you can't find it outside of LA and an odd loca...

  When we arrived in Death Valley it was 90F. The first thing we had to do was find a place to stay for the night.  Well, after we got Junior Ranger books of course. The campsites in Furnace Creek were booked but there were lots of openings at Stovetop Wells.  Furnace Creek is the only developed campground that takes reservations. The rest our first come first served. I wanted to stay near Mesquite Spring Campground, but we decided that was too far afield. Not our typical campsite, this was more like a parking lot, but we're just here to sleep so whatever.  Most of the campgrounds look something like this, but smaller. After paying for our campsite we got ready to hike and headed to the nearby sand dunes. This is the largest national park and everything is spaced far apart. We stayed close to our campsite and went over to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes .  We got there just in time for a nice hike across the dunes during sunset. The kids loved it here.  It's ...

Day 1 Minneapolis - San Fransisco  And we're off again. This time on an actual planned vacation. Somehow we managed to all get up and eat breakfast despite a relatively early flight to San Jose.   Travel Theo is so cute.  He didn't remember the last time we took a flight back in 2020 , so we let him sit at the window. He was interested for about 5 seconds. He was more into the movie choices on the back of his seat.  Brooke, Meadow and Theo sat on one side and I got to sit with strangers. Unfair. Meadow coordinating as usual.  We flew into San Jose despite wanting to start our journey in San Francisco. After debating Caltrain, BART or renting a car, we just took an uber. Not cheap for one person, but basically the same price as our other options with the four of us. An hour or so later we arrived at the Hotel Triton in what I guess is simply called Downtown. Fortunately for us our hotel was right at the gateway to Chinatown. Perfect as we were hungry for lunch. I...

DAY 2 One of the things I wanted to do while I was here was go to a farmers market. I wanted to have a fresh, ripe orange. We decided to take the light rail there only to realize later we had gotten on the wrong train. Since there wasn't much time we went back downtown and drove their car instead. Eventually we arrived at the farmers market in nearby Campbell. I was a little jealous of all the things available that we couldn't buy. Well, it's 30 degrees back home and they pay five times as much for their homes. I also loved that most of the vendors had samples of their fruits. I had wanted strawberries, but after trying most of them out none of them seemed ripe or sweet enough. I was kind of surprised to see no permanent farmers markets. Instead they just throw up some canopies and close the main street. I decided to pick up some delicious dates to snack on all week. We hadn't eaten breakfast because we planned to go to the f...