California

Joshua Tree National Park, about a three-hour drive from the city of Los Angeles, is home to Joshua Trees. If you have a day to spend, I would recommend a hike followed by the viewpoints.

There are several caves at Lava Beds National Monument of varying levels of challenges. I would recommend starting with a few easy ones first before taking it to a higher level. The caves do get really shallow at times, sometimes, less than a foot in height, so, don’t go in if you get claustrophobic. Gears to carry HeadLamp Helmet - even a bike helmet would work Knee Pads Good hiking boots A small chart summarizing which caves to do Detailed report with maps of the caves

Strenuous hikes Half Dome hike 17-miles 12-hours with a breath-taking dangerous climb holding chains on the majestic half dome at the end. This hike requires a permit for the final half dome climb. The Clouds Rest Trail 12-miles 7-hours hike. The trail ends at a point higher than the Half dome. One gets a great view of the park as well as the Half dome from here. I would recommend doing only one of these two hikes in a single trip....

For the uninitiated, French Laundry is one of the best restaurants in the world. I got a chance to try the tasting menu. I had a vegetarian, or to be precise, a lacto-vegetarian (milk and cheese but not eggs) meal here. The restaurant looks nondescript from the outside, and it is easy to miss it while driving. It was an 8-10 course meal, depending on how you count a course. Portion sizes were small but delicious. And there was a gap of about 15-20 mins before each serving. So, a commitment of 3-4 hours for the full course.

We made this trip over three days in December; even then, Death Valley National Park was warm during the day and cold at night. Therefore, I would warn against going there in summer, where it could be unbearably hot.

Day 1 - Reach the Outpost Camp (3.8 miles, 10.4K ft) Day 2 - Started at 8 AM Reached consultation lake at noon Reached trail crest at 2:20 PM Reached summit at 6 PM Returned to Outpost Camp by 11:35 PM Day 3 - Head back to Whitney Portal Conditions It was all snow covered - knee-deep snow in some places. 99 switchbacks are not possible under such conditions, so, we climbed up the chute....

This set of articles are for Internationals who have recently relocated to California for a job. I am listing a few things which I wish I knew when I first arrived here for a full-time job. Short link to this page: http://bit.ly/fotb-ca) Hunting for apartment Use craigslist.org, padmapper.com (this also provides average renting prices of the area) and housingmaps.com. Use crimereports.com to check the crime statistics of the area as well....