Author: James

New to rv'ing in 2020, traveling in a 20ft Geo Pro G19RD travel trailer, towed by a 2020 Tacoma TRD Off Road 4x4.

13-19 Oct 2023: Lone Pine Alabama Hills Trip

by JamesCalifornia / Campgrounds / Day Trips / RV Parks / Travel

We’ve been staying closer to home and taking shorter trips. So our RV trips are to locations that are within two-days travel from home. We were hoping that there might be Fall colors in the eastern Sierras based on some travel vlogs & Google searches. Plus some photographers in the UCSD Photography Interest Group have talked about their trips to the Alabama Hills in Lone Pine California. So we planned a short trip in mid-October, hoping to catch some Fall colors.


Since we often start our trips at noon, we prefer to keep our drives on day 1 to ~3hrs. Towing our travel trailer at ~55-60mph, especially through traffic, can be nerve-wracking. So we stopped about mid-way at Arabian RV Oasis in Boron CA. There aren’t many RV parks along highway 395 in this area. There are plenty of dispersed campsites but we prefer hookups.
Oct 13th – Arabian RV Oasis was good for one night – not fancy, quiet and affordable.

Arabian RV Oasis Road Sign
Arabian RV Oasis Office
Facilities, pretty sad
Gravel, roomy sites

Oct 14th – Boulder Creek RV Resort

My friends recommended Lone Pine/Alabama Hills as a great plan to hike, camp, & photograph. They camp at Tuttle Creek Campground or other BLM dispersed campgrounds in the Lone Pine area. We wanted hookups so we stayed at Boulder Creek RV Resort in south Lone Pine. It’s a really nice RV park near the Mt Whitney Portal and Alabama Hills with great amenities and location. There are plenty of places to camp but this is one of the only RV campgrounds with hookups in the area.

Entrance sign on 395
View of the Eastern Sierras from the RV park
Pool & hot tub
RV site

Daytrips In or From Lone Pine:

Upgrading/Migrating smallwanders.net

by JamesWebsite-related

I recently moved this website from Hostinger Premium Hosting to Hostinger Business Hosting. Smallwanders.net was stressing the ‘premium’ webserver. I was receiving ‘limited resources’ messages even though only ~50% of the 100gb was used. So for improved performance & 200gb storage, I moved this site to a ‘business’ webserver with double the specs. Not a standalone server, but a shared server with twice the capacity & horsepower.

If you migrate a WordPress website from a different hosting service to Hostinger. Hostinger tech support will migrate the website for you within a day or two for free. When I moved from Hostgator to Hostinger, they migrated my three WordPress websites – fotoikigai.com, mindwander.com & smallwanders.net. They were all done within a few days and the migration went flawlessly.
After adding hellomondays.net & ucsdphoto.group websites. Premium hosting resources were stressed even though traffic to any of these sites is very (VERY) low.

Unfortunately, if you are moving from one Hostinger account to another, they do not provide WordPress migration for free. They’ll do it for $50 OR provide detailed instructions (even video) on how to do it yourself. So this is the approach I chose since I have some webmaster knowledge.
In order to migrate a WordPress website to a new account, you create a backup of all the files, directories, and the database. If you want to keep the same domain name, you are instructed to delete your website before setting up the new website. I was reluctant to delete all smallwanders.net files before being absolutely sure the backups & migration worked.

So I chose to duplicate smallwanders.net to a new domain – smallwanders.us. The ‘free for the first year’ domain names that available for registration at Hostinger are limited to: .net, .xyz, .com, .online, .link, .shop, .live, .digital, .tech, .space, .website, .email, .fun, .click, .site, .uno, .in, .host, .store, .press, .me, .help. They’ll register others domains, like .org & .us, but at the regular domain registration fee. Registering smallwanders.us is $3.99 for 1yr on Dynadot.com & $7.99/yr after, so my preferred alternative.

This website’s backup tar.gz file was over 22gb(!) but it turns out the backup included all five websites. So the upload took quite awhile & two attempts. (Tip – use ftp instead of the hPanel file manager’s upload)
Following the ‘moving-a-website-to-another-hostinger-account-and-another-domain‘ instructions, I created a new database using phpMyAdmin. Where things get complicated or confusing is trying to ‘find & replace’ smallwanders.net with smallwanders.us in the database. You can use a MySQL script but you have to specify each table & column to search. phpMyAdmin Search function has Find & Replace but it also requires repeating the process for each table-column. Or, as Hostinger’s instruction instructs, you can ‘use a WordPress plugin’.
I used a much simpler easier method than their suggestions

  • After following all of the Hostinger’s instructions, when it came to the Find & Replace step. I did this:
    • In smallwanders.net hPanel, I opened the WordPress database in phpMyAdmin then Exported the database as sql. This process will download the .sql file to your computer.
    • I opened the downloaded .sql file into a text editor (Notepad++) then used search & replace to change ‘smallwanders.net’ to ‘smallwanders.us’
    • Then saved the edited .sql file to a newname.sql to preserve the original, just in case
    • On smallwanders.us, I used phpMyAdmin to opened the new empty WordPress database (created using Hostinger’s instructions) then Imported (uploaded) the edited .sql file.
    • Finally, using smallwanders.us file manager, I edited the wp-config.php file with the new database, username, and password
      • DB_NAME = u123456789_abcd -these are just examples, I used the actual database values
      • DB_USER = u123456789_efgh
      • DB_PASSWORD = ‘@#$%^&*()(‘
    • That’s it – it was much easier than using a search query & quicker than installing a plugin.
  • Hostinger’s moving-a-website-to-another-hostinger-account-and-another-domain instructions
  • Hostinger’s moving-a-website-to-another-hostinger-account-keeping-the-same-domain instructions
  • Hostinger’s how-to-set-up-a-hosting-plan instructions

Although Hostinger Premium Website hosting has many features like 100 domains & 100gb of space. If you upload a lot of media content like photos or video, say over 40gb. You will begin to see a slowdown and get ‘resources are limited’ warnings. So if you want to save yourself some headaches and run a busy site or multiple websites, opt for the Business Web Hosting tier.

Now that smallwanders.us is up and running. I will not hesitate to delete all the smallwanders.net posts & uploads. When that’s done, I’ll point the smallwanders.net domain to smallwanders.us so that URL will still work.

11-13 Aug 2023: Joshua Tree/Perseid Meteor Shower

by JamesCalifornia / Campgrounds / Day Trips / Hikes / Joshua Tree National Park / National Parks / RV Parks / Sightseeing / Southern California / Trips

I saw a post about the 2023 Perseid Meteor Shower on Instagram. One of the best places to see this event in California is Joshua Tree National Park, a dark-sky area. But Joshua Tree is 105°F during the day in August. Regardless, all available campsites at Joshua Tree National Park were booked.
Our last trip to Joshua Tree was the same way, so we stayed at TwentyNine Palms RV Resort. It’s located 3mi from the north entrance and usually has available sites with full hookups. Until we install or buy a RV with 12v A/C, we prefer to stay at a place with electrical hookups when it’s that hot. We do not want to run a gas/propane generator for hours to stay cool.
Since we arrived before sunset on Friday Aug 11th, we drove into Joshua Tree to find a location to photograph the Milky Way. The Perseid Meteor Shower was already happening but peak viewing was Saturday, the next night. I wanted to photograph the Milky Way with Joshua Trees. So we stopped at Cap Rock and I found a Joshua tree foreground for my Milky Way photo along the southern trail.
On our way out, we stopped at Skull Rock to watch shooting stars for an hour before heading to the RV. Since Saturday night was forecast to be peak viewing of the meteor shower. I focused on getting a Milky Way+Joshua Tree photo Friday night. Saturday, I’d spend photographing shooting stars with a star tracker.


As we were leaving Joshua Tree NP Friday night, we noticed many people had chairs & recliners that made star gazing more comfortable. So Saturday, our mission was to find two zero gravity recliners in Yucca Valley. We found the last two on clearance at Home Depot. Tip: definitely invest in zero gravity recliners if you plan on spending any serious time star gazing.
Saturday, I wanted to do a hike before we setup for the meteor shower viewing. The temperature that evening was cool enough to hike the Heart Rock and Arch Rock Trail before it got dark. Turns out the area around the Arch Rock Trail parking lot would work for meteor shower viewing. Especially since we were lucky enough to grab one of the last parking spots. The lot was full and people were already setting up for meteor viewing when we arrived before sunset. Little did we know how CRAZY crowded Joshua Tree National Park would be tonight.

We saw an amazing display of shooting stars but not the hundred per hour predicted. I set up my Move Shoot Move star tracker and shot 2 minute exposures of the northeast sky and straight-up. After 3 hours of exposures from 2200-0100, ~90 frames, I was disappointed that the many shooting stars we saw were not in frame. This was my first try at star-tracked astrophotography and I was successful at polar alignment & tracking the stars. But successful astrophotography images are the result of practice & patience and I definitely need more of both. I didn’t want to interrupt the interval to check for successful capturing of what we were seeing. I thought the 14mm focal length was wide enough to catch the meteor trails.
We packed it in a little after 0100, after 3 hours of star-gazing. Our RV park is still in the dark area so if the meteor shower improved at 0200. We could still watch from outside our RV. As we left the park, the line of cars to get in stretched the 3mi to the main road. Crazy that hundreds of people were just arriving at 0100.
Regardless, we had a great time and were glad we got there early – the zero gravity recliners were a wonderful, comfortable way to star gaze. We’ll definitely make it a point to visit Joshua Tree at night often.

We packed up and departed 29Palms at 11am. Unfortunately, all the other thousands of people who came to Joshua Tree for the meteor shower were also heading West at that time. It took a few extra hours to get home because of the traffic.

03-05 Aug 2023: San Diego Urban Camping

by JamesCalifornia / Campgrounds / RV Parks / RVing / Southern California / Trips

It’s been increasing difficult to find a spur-of-the-moment RV site this year, especially affordable ones. Our weekday schedule has been busy and campgrounds on the weekend are all booked. So we felt lucky to find a few days at San Diego Metro KOA to take the grand-kids for a few nights of ‘urban RV camping’. This San Diego KOA is close to most of San Diego’s sights like Sea World and the San Diego Zoo but we were able to find plenty to do at the KOA.

They offer a nice list of daily activities for kids and families plus they have a great swimming pool. It’s large and mostly shallow so the kiddos spent a lot of time in the water. August was warm so cooling off in the pool was a great way to spend the day. The RV sites are also nicely shaded by trees so we did not need to run the A/C all the time. But these trees continually drop leaves and seed pods on Howie so I needed to sweep the roof before we left.
The KOA has special events celebrating holidays & special times of the year, such as Fall Festivals, and Halloween. But there’s always something going on Monday-Saturday during the summer, like Movies under the Stars. Some activities were not operational – the Rock Climbing Wall or Surf Shack Shootout were closed while we were there. So refer to the activities calendar when you arrive to not miss something.
Some of the activities that kept us busy:

  • Swimming pool – the kiddos can spend hours at the pool and the KOA had a Mermaid/Pirate-hosted pool party Saturday morning.
  • Barrel Train – throughout the morning & early afternoon, there is a barrel train that takes kids and adults around the perimeter of the resort for a fun, free five-minute ride.
  • Jumping pillows – the large jumping pillow get hot during mid-day but morning and evening bouncing is great fun and will expend loads of energy.
  • Bicycle rentals – if you didn’t bring bikes or want to try some fun bikes that you don’t have at home! They rent 3-wheel Fun Cycles, 4-wheel Peddle Carts, and 2-6 Person Surrey Bikes. Hour or half hour rentals.
  • Cotton Candy or Shaved Ice – these activities have a small fee but are a special treat!
  • Bike/Scooter Decorating – add streamers and balloon to your favorite mode of transportation
  • Scavenger Hunt – follow the clue sheet to find different locations & fun facts around the resort, take a selfie when you get there, and be awarded a free craft coupon.
Magic Show
Bikes Rented
Panning For Crystals
Scavenger Hunt Task “Take A Goofy Selfie”
Scavenger Hunt Task Selfie
Barrel Train
Smores
Tablet Time Before Smores
Barrel Train

10-24 May 2023: Japan

by JamesInternational Travel / Travel / Trips

Not a RV trip of course, but this was our first international trip since Italy in Dec 2019/Jan 2020. Our son Sean & family planned a long-awaited trip to Japan and invited us to join them. They planned a 3-week trip but we only planned for a two-week stay.
We would overlap in Tokyo for 5 days then travel separately to Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka. I’ve been to Japan several times but this was my first trip without my Mom, who was Japanese. I was hoping to explore areas of Japan I’ve missed on our many earlier trips. It was a very different travel experience without her. But thanks to Google Maps & T-Mobile, navigating the Japanese mass transit system was pretty easy. Even with all the trains, buses, and taxis, we averaged ~20,000 or more steps each day.

Covid-19 is still on everyone’s mind in Japan and (almost) everyone wears masks, even outdoors. Japan is so densely populated and the trains/subways/metros/buses are packed so it’s very understandable. Carol and I, who have gone 3yrs Covid-free, both came down with it this trip. Fortunately, symptoms were mild and neither of us were severely sick.
If you plan on traveling internationally, especially to Japan, be sure to bring Covid tests. Getting tested there as a tourist can be expensive & complicated – there are a few locations offering PCR testing for foreigners or refer to this US Embassy info page. When we were there and asked a local pharmacy, they said they only provide testing for residents. So Covid testing for foreigners isn’t as easy – refer to these sites that provide info on tourist testing.

11-16 May 2023: Tokyo

One of my biggest frustrations about traveling to Asia is crossing the International Date Line, so you immediately lose a day. Plus the flights are 11 or more hours long, so you are losing most of a second day. If you fly non-stop from SoCal at 1pm May 10th, you land in Narita Airport May 11th ~5pm. Going through customs, then traveling an hour to Tokyo from Narita, adds to the long travel day. You ‘gain’ a day coming back but a two-week trip to Japan is more like 10 days with all the travel involved.
But Japan is worth it and one of our favorite countries to visit. Going there with the grand-kids was refreshing plus Sean & Melissa planned full days of eclectic activities. We had very little to plan for the first five days of our trip.

Balcony View, Hotel Edmont
Tokyo Giants Baseball
Tokyo Dome City
  • 11 May: Hotel Metropolitan Edmont Tokyo – this hotel is centrally located and near the Suidobashi & Iidabashi train stations. The room was spacious by Japanese standard with a balcony with a view to the area (see photo 1). The Tokyo Dome (photo 2) and Tokyo Dome City (photo 3) are within walking distance. Catch a baseball game at the Tokyo Dome or just visit the shops, restaurants, gardens, amusement park & playgrounds of Tokyo Dome City.
  • 12 May: Tokyo
    • Gotokuji Temple: Toyko’s Maneki Neko ‘Lucky Cat’ Temple
    • Ghibli Museum 4:00PM
  • 13 May: Tokyo
    • MINI PIG CAFE 11 AM
    • Baseball Game 2:00PM
    • Tokyo Dome City
  • 14 May: Tokyo
    • Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens
    • Kanda Matsuri Festival
    • Sumo Tournament
    • Tokyo Skytree
  • 15 May: Hakone Day Trip
    • Open Air Museum
    • Hakone Ropeway to Owakudani
    • Lake Ashi
  • 16 May: Last Day in Tokyo
    • TeamLabs Tokyo- Art Exhibit 1:30-2 Entry
    • Shinkansen to Kyoto

16-19 May 2023: Kyoto

Sean & family’s plan was to stay in Tokyo till May 20th. Since our Japan trip was only two week, not three, we headed to Kyoto on May 16th. I’ve been to Kyoto a several times but this was my first visit without my Mom. Traveling so far has been pretty easy using Google directions to find our way. Having a Suica card in our iPhone wallet made riding the train and buses in Japan really easy. You place your iPhone on the IC reader and it automatically deducts the correct fare from your Suica card. It displays your balance so you can recharge your card whenever your balance gets low. We used T-Mobile’s $50 International Plan so our phones just worked normally. We did not need a mobile wifi device, Japanese e-sim card or eSim app like Airalo. Using something other than T-Mobile may have been cheaper. But having our regular phone numbers and iPhones working natively was worth the convenience.

  • 16 May: Sakura Terrace The Gallery Hotel – the hotel is a short two-minute walk from the Kyoto train station. It was the perfect base location for our itinerary in Kyoto. The hotel was wonderful with nightly complimentary welcome drinks & a special guest dinner menu. Their breakfast buffet was the best we had in Japan. If we get back to Kyoto, we will definitely stay here again.
  • 17 May: Kyoto
    • Fushimi Inari
  • 18 May: Kyoto
    • Arashiyama Bamboo Grove
    • Iwatayama Monkey Park
    • Sagano Romantic Train

19-20 May 2023: Nara

When we came back to the USA from Thailand in 1970, we stopped in Japan. One of my favorite memories of our visit to Japan besides visiting our Japanese relatives Obaasan Misa (grandma), Obasan (Aunt) Kiyoko and Kazuko, was our visit to Nara. In the family photo album was a favorite photo of me surrounded by deer. I remembered being amongst them as they roamed freely around the city – wild but habituated to people. I made it a point to spend one night in Nara versus just a day trip. Being in Nara in the early morning is special, before the crowds arrive and the deer get aggressive for rice crackers (Osembe). A day trip or even one night isn’t really a long enough stay. Like Hakone, there is so much to experience besides the usual tourist spots. I would have love to have at least one more day to hike Mt. Kasuga Primeval Forest.

  • 19 May: Nara Visitor’s Center & Inn – we stayed on the perimeter of Nara Park, in a huge (by Japanese standards) private room at the Nara Visitor’s Center & Inn. Kyoto and Nara have many traditional hotels (ryokans) but the location & amenities this place offered were hard to beat. They do not serve breakfast but provide cultural experiences and free luggage storage. There are several nearby coffee shops, including Starbucks, and restaurants for meals.
    • Nakatanidou Mochi Shop – a short must ‘must-see’ stop is a local mochi shop where every 20-30mins they pound mochi (sweet sticky rice) with wooden mallets. It’s quite the energetic show but only last a few minutes. The resulting rice cakes with sweet beans are the freshest you’ll ever find and delicious.
  • 20 May:

20-23 May 2023: Osaka

Of the many times I visited Japan, I do not remember staying in Osaka. After Kyoto, we typically traveled south to Kagoshima where my Mom grew up. This trip, Osaka would be the furthest south we would travel.

  • 20 May: Holiday Inn Osaka Namba – I decided this late in the trip we’d prefer a roomier hotel room than the typical Japanese hotel. Some are only 118-161 sq ft, so I booked a larger (269sqft) room at the Holiday Inn. We wanted to be walking distance to the river & Dontonburi and this hotel was one block away. Being a Holiday Inn, they provided a lot of American amenities (plus IHG points). But I’d have to say their breakfast buffet was a disappointment, worst we had in Japan. Still, it was great not being cramped in a small hotel room our last few days in Japan was relaxing.
    • Osaka Dotonburi
  • 21 May:
    • Osaka Aquarium
    • Dontonburi Night Photography
  • 22 May:
    • Osaka Castle
    • Tsutenkaku Hitachi Tower

23 May 2023: Osaka Shinkansen to Tokyo to Narita Airport

We considered traveling back to Tokyo for one night. But decided a long train ride from Osaka was less tedious than checking in and out of another hotel. It was a long busy day of travel but we had plenty of time to make our 5:20pm flight. It should be notable that although Japan has a great infrastructure of mass transit and taxis. You still can easily log more than 20000 steps in a day.

Day 3: Sumo Tournament, Kanda Matsuri Festival, Skytree

by JamesDay Trips / International Travel / Sightseeing / Travel

Tokyo Day 3

Our itinerary in Tokyo was full thanks to Sean & Melissa’s planning. This was their first family visit to Japan so they wanted to make the most of it. May 14th was Mother’s Day so Melissa wanted to see the Kanda Matsuri Festival. This is an important cultural Shinto event that she wanted to experience.

According to Wikipedia:

“Kanda Festival, is one of the three great Shinto festivals of Tokyo, along with the Fukagawa Matsuri and Sannō Matsuri. The festival started in the early 17th century as a celebration of Tokugawa Ieyasu‘s decisive victory at the battle of Sekigahara and was continued as a display of the prosperity of the Tokugawa shogunate during the Edo period. Additionally, the current form of the festival is also held in honor of the kami of Kanda Myōjin (Kanda Shrine).
The festival is held on the Saturday and Sunday closest to May 15, but since it alternates with the Sannō Matsuri, it is only held in odd-numbered years. On these years, the festival takes place at Kanda Shrine as well as in surrounding central Tokyo districts. Its prominent parades involve over 200 mikoshi, in addition to musicians, dancers, and floats.”

Kanda Masuri Festival

Kanda Matsuri Festival
Kanda Matsuri Festival
Carrying the shrine out
Shine at Temple

Sumo Tournament

With all the visits I’ve made to Japan, I’ve never experienced a Sumo Tournament, other than on TV. It is another wonderful cultural event that expresses the Japanese culture. Sean bought tickets from the US well in advanced and we had seats above the front of the ring – Dohyo.

Sumo Tournament
Sumo Tournament
Sumo Tournament

Tokyo Skytree

I’ve visited the Tokyo Skytree on previous trips but missed much of the shopping & restaurants, just going up in the tower for panoramic views of Tokyo. This trip, we were there at night and enjoyed the city lights at night. Then walked through the mall & had Japanese fast food – ramen.

Day 2: Mini Pig Cafe, Giants Baseball & Tokyo Dome

by JamesBaseball / Day Trips / International Travel / Sightseeing / Travel

MINI PIG CAFE 11 AM

There is so much to see in Tokyo and you can just hop on the train and/or walk to many sights. But if you want to visit certain venues or businesses, many require a reservation. Japan has many animal-themed cafes where you can visit dogs, cats, hedgehogs, pigs, birds, and even snakes/reptiles. They offer animal companionship without the burden of maintaining pets in an urban environment. Our granddaughter chose the mini pig cafe since she had a cat cafe birthday a few months before. We made an 11am reservation and we all had a great time. The pigs were sweet and cuddly, loving to nap on our legs/laps. Some bickered with each other and the cafe hosts were quick to snatch-up the troublemakers.

Tokyo Dome Giants Baseball & Tokyo Dome City

If you love baseball or even if you don’t, you’ve got to experience baseball in Japan. It’s quite a different experience – it celebrates the game as only the Japanese can. The left & right outfields have two separate cheering sections for each team – think Friday Night High-school Football amplified. The two sides below the panoramic score board are dedicated, opposing cheer sections. They are loud and enthusiastic. Coordinated cheers, especially when a popular player is coming up to bat, results in a lot of noise throughout the game. The Tokyo Giants, although wearing the same colors as the San Francisco Giants, are the ‘New York Yankees of Japan’.
The Tokyo Dome is an amazing place to watch a game and it is always packed. But tickets can be had if booked far in advanced or through various ticket agencies. Tip: on a previous trip to Japan, we bought two last-minute Tokyo Giants tickets at a nearby Lawson convenience store. They had a ticket vending machine in the store. This trip’s tickets were reserved online from the US well in advance.
Surrounding the Tokyo Dome is Tokyo Dome City, acres of shopping, restaurants, gardens, and amusement rides. It was a wonderful place for the grand-kids to get ice cream, ride the ferris wheel, and expend their pent-up energy from sitting during the game.

Day 1: Godzilla, Gotokuji Temple & Ghibli Museum

by JamesInternational Travel / Sightseeing / Travel / Trips

We started our two weeks in Japan in Tokyo. Staying at the Hotel Edmont that’s walking distance from the train station. This location was a great base location for our destinations around Tokyo. Sean & Melissa had planned most of the activities for us, buying tickets etc. It was great traveling to Japan with our kids and grand-kids since their viewpoints are so refreshing.

Day 1: “G-Day”

Shinjuku Godzilla Head, Toho Theatre

Just a short scavenger hunt to find Godzilla in Shinjuku. Rising over the Toho Theatre there, is Godzilla, well just the head & neck but a fun place if you are a Godzilla fan.

Gotokuji Temple: Toyko’s Maneki Neko ‘Lucky Cat’ Temple.
I expected to see live cats at this ‘cat temple’ but in hindsight I guess that’d be silly.
According to atlasobscura.com: “Legend has it that during the Edo period, the final era of traditional Japanese government, a cat under the care of a priest at Gotokuji Temple led a feudal lord to safety during a thunderstorm. The cat beckoned the lord and his servants inside with a waving gesture—hence all maneki-neko statues have one paw raised.”
The thousands of white ceramic waving-paw good luck cats will be very familiar to those seeking good luck & good fortune.

Ghibli Museum

A hard-to-get ticket in Tokyo is the Ghibli Museum but Sean managed to secured tickets for all of us for 4pm, the last entry time of the day. Like Disney in the US, the Ghibli characters, such as Totoro, are Japanese animation’s most beloved characters.
The museum describes & archives the humble beginnings and rigorous process of creating these amazing characters & animating them. The analog processes are described in detail through the many displays and authentic work-spaces. (Tip: ask the information desk for an English language guide since all the descriptions are in Japanese.) Unfortunately, photos inside the museum are forbidden so I could only photograph the rooftop garden & exterior spaces of this magical place.

25 Mar 2023: Imperial Sand Dunes

by JamesCalifornia / Day Trips / Hikes / Sightseeing / Southern California / Travel

After spending the morning at Center of the World, & lunching in Yuma, we drove an hour to the Imperial Sand Dunes. We couldn’t find the turnoff for Ted Kipf Rd to North Algodones Dunes Wilderness Area so we stopped at the Hugh T. Osborne Lookout. There are restrooms and a large parking lot & it was busy. This is the ATVs & ORVs meet-up place with large parking spots for their support vehicles. The dunes south of highway 78 are etched with tire tracks so not the best for sand dune photographs. It’s an epic place to offroad w/ friends & carve up the dunes, or take photos of such activities. A permit is required to operate vehicles on the Imperial Sand Dunes – permit info here; area Map pdf here.


North of the 78, is the beginning of the BLM protected wilderness area where motorized vehicles are prohibited. We parked at Osborne Overlook then hiked across the road (78) where the Wilderness Area begins and no vehicles are allowed. There were some photo-worthy dunes so I made the best of the afternoon light. Hiking the dunes is challenging and be sure to bring water.

I wanted to find the road to the North Algodones Dunes which google maps outlines so clearly. It turns out Ted Kipf Rd is a barely marked, easy-to-miss dirt road that turns north off highway 78 at Glamis. After hiking the nearby dunes and the busy morning, we decided not to navigate Ted Kipf Rd. I was okay with the few images I took near the Overlook – below is a mix of north & south dunes. I will definitely be back to explore the North Algodones Dunes at sunset & Milky Way season.

25 Mar 2023: Center of the World

by JamesCalifornia / Day Trips / Sightseeing / Travel

We stayed at Encore Pilot RV Resort in Winterhaven, CA ~10mi from Yuma, AZ. It’s an Encore/Thousand Trails RV Resort in southeastern California on the Arizona border. When searching for places-of-interest in the area, the Center of The World Museum came up. It was right across the freeway from our RV resort. Since I wanted to photograph the Imperial Sand Dunes in the late afternoon/evening for the best light. We spent ~90mins exploring the Center of the World, early in the day when it was cooler.
It’s a really interesting, unusual, unique place in the middle of nowhere. Located in Felicity, CA, this ‘History of Humanity in Granite’ outdoor museum covers several acres. It reminds me of the roadside attractions we would drive by on our family road trips when I was young. It’s hard to describe all that is notable – the Pyramid, Chapel, Maze, Eiffel Tower Stairs, and multi-subject Granite Etchings. The historical panels, laser-etched in granite, have intricate detail, and information in English, French, & Hebrew. Each array of panels cover different, eclectic subjects and records significant moments in history, art, music, and biology. The founder, Jacque-André, was French with an affiliation with the French Foreign Legion and there are sections devoted to their history. Will these be 21st century petroglyphs in 4000yrs? Time will tell.
Highly recommended if you enjoy unusual roadside outdoor museums – admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children 5yrs & up (as of mid-2023). Is it really the ‘Center of the World’? Probably not but there are some credentials, given to the founder, innovator & builder, that say it is recognized as such. Read more if you are curious about its creation by Jacques-André Istel.