After exploring Catalina Island and some of the communities in and around Long Beach, I bade farewell to my cousins and continued my trek along Highway 1, AKA the Pacific Coast Highway. My end destination of this particular road trip was Chandler, Arizona where some other cousins live.
Along the way, however, I decided to hit up several places on my photographic bucket list, namely the pier at Huntington Beach, scenic Laguna Beach, the mission in San Juan Capistrano, and off-the-beaten-path Wrightwood. Here are a few shots from my journey.
Welcome to Huntington Beach, AKA Surf City...
Being early spring, the beaches were not yet very crowded...
Ahhh to be a lifeguard in Southern California...
Another view from the pier...
Huntington Beach pier was built in 1904 and is the heart of HB...
A vintage VW bus with lots of stickers...
I didn't have anyone to share happy hour with, so I just took a photo of this...
Lovely Laguna Beach, only a short drive south of HB...
Laguna Beach is home to some of the priciest real estate in Orange Country...
Dana Point is another lovely coastal community just a short drive from Laguna Beach...
Expensive homes on the ridge overlooking the harbor...
Lone Pine Canyon Road takes you back into the valley...
The rugged Mormon Rocks are located along the San Andreas fault line and are at the bottom of Lone Pine Canyon Road...
After my visit in Wrightwood, I headed to Phoenix to spend a few days with my cousins. Once I settled into their home in Chandler, we took a day trip to Tucson and stopped to check out the small town of Florence, just a short detour from I-10.
Florence is also home to three large prisons...
Many of the buildings here are on the National Registry of Historic Places...
Some vicious residents behind bars...
It's a fun town to explore and has a real desert-wild-west feel...
Once we arrived in Tucson, we headed to Sabino Canyon, a natural desert oasis...
You can either hike the 3.8 mile trail or take one of the trolleys...
Because we didn't have a lot of time, we hopped on the trolley and took it all the way to the end of the trail through the deep canyon...
It's an amazing natural destination for campers, hikers, and nature lovers...
Our next stop was Mission San Xavier del Bac...
It's beautiful both inside and out and is located 10 miles south of downtown Tucson...
It was founded in 1692 and is a National Historic Landmark...
Before leaving the Phoenix area, I was treated to a visit to the Desert Botanical Garden...
I was lucky to be able to see Chihuly's glass art on display throughout the gardens...
It was very colorful and definitely added pizazz to the desert landscape...
One more place on my bucket list was the London Bridge in Arizona - yes Arizona! This bridge formerly spanned the Thames River in London and was dismantled in 1967 and transported piece by piece and reconstructed in Lake Havasu City in 1971...
On my journey back home, I made a minor detour so that I could inspect this bridge myself...
Lake Havasu is a popular destination for college students during spring break...
This is a statue of the two men who were responsible for bringing the bridge from London, England all the way to Arizona...
And so another road trip was successfully completed. I was fortunate to be able to tour Southern California and the desert Southwest before the onset of the intense heat that descends upon these regions every summer. Of course it helps to have relatives whom I can mooch off of! Some people have no desire to visit the desert areas of our country, but I find them enchanting and full of interesting sites to enjoy.
How about you - have you been to any of these places before?
How about you - have you been to any of these places before?
2 comments:
What an amazing tour with some great photos! I've been to most of these places, but taken years and multiple trips to see them all. Looks like you captured them all on one visit!
What an excellent road trip and you always manage to stumble upon interesting stops along the way. Love the pictures. Can't choose a fave, they're all great.
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