He's Grad School Bound!

During the first week of March James found out that he will be moving on into grad school. He was formally accepted to Cal-Poly Pomona for their Landscape Architecture Program. This is a 3 year program, with the option for a fourth to double major in Urban Planning. He was also accepted to Cunny in NYC, but we've decided to stick it out here in LA, and see what happens. Beside, Cal-Ploy's program is much better.

As James is about to begin his career path, I am floating around in mine. A year through my MFA and I have a terrible feeling about the direction of this path. Everyone that has come lecture through our program is broke, and has been working odd jobs for the last 10 years and making art on the side. If this is the case I don't think I need to waste another year's worth of money to make that happen. Ah, yes the option to teach in a university. Well, there is always that, but apparently that's just as unlikely as anything else.

So while I'm thrilled for James and our life together, and I'm back at the drawing board for my career. Two masters programs down, how many more to go? For the first time I'm considering the most practical of career paths, and am finally ready to make money. For the time being I'm looking for work, and looking for a new direction.

Spring Break Trip - Part 2

DSCF8341, originally uploaded by JJriders.

Spring time in the desert! Hard to imagine, but around this time of year the desert is full of flowers popping up here and there. While it is still obviously the desert, there are some amazingly, unique flowers that you'll find no where else. This is where the second part of our trip lead us: to Anza-Borrego State Park, which is north east of San Diego, CA.

We reached the destination on motorcycle in one day, and camped for two days.

We were excited to use the motorcycle off-road, and since all the campsites were reserved, this was a perfect spot to test out the capabilities of the new bike. The camping turned out to be great! The first site we visited we dropped the bike, but this time the bike slowly kicked out from under us. We both were able to catch ourselves and immediately stand up. The site we actually stayed at was so amazing and free! We were close to one group of people in a RV, but there were totally quiet and well behaved. This site gave us the best sunset, and was utter wilderness besides this other group.

During the day we hiked around the area of our campsite and found some amazing sand stone. We also saw lizards, a jack rabbit and heard coyotes howling at night. It definitely was still hot and dry turning the day time, even though it's only Spring. The temperature reached about 90 degrees, and I was really happy we had the protective clothing, sunscreen and hats with us, as there was little to no shade.

On the way back home we stopped by Salvation Mountain, Salton Sea and Sonny Bono State Animal Reserve. All really great stops, but would be unlikely as a destination, but if in the area, its worth the stop.