You may have noticed in the news lately where the media has been discussing the California sever drought and water crisis. There are commercials that tell residents of California to conserve water and this affects everybody. I have heard that the majority of water consumption for the state of California is between the state government and commercial business and that only 5% is being consumed by consumers. I don’t know weather that is true or not, however I do know that California is an expensive state to live in. I haven’t been able to put a finger on exactly why it is so expensive. Now I know the answer why. This past weekend I drove up the I-5 to San Francisco and somewhere north of Los Angeles around Bakersfield all the way up to east of San Jose I found a huge issue why the state of California is so darn expensive to live in.
Here are some photos of what I saw along the way:
Before long I started seeing signs along the roadway. Here are some of the signs I’ve seen:
I couldn’t believe what I saw. I saw signs stating that they need water to grow crops. One sign actually said, “millions paid and no water delivered.” I thought this was just the craziest thing I’ve seen. Why would anybody be trying to grow crops in this desert like area? I thought this would be a must better place to have solar or wind farms. It would be an excellent way to produce large amounts of electricity on land where much isn’t growing…well, I was surprised again. Before long I actually seen that fresh water was being pumped to this part of the state so that crops could grow. Here are the photos of the canal where water was being pumped.
Sure enough a little further down the road I saw farms that were growing everything from corn, to oranges, lemons, apples, wheat, almonds, and lots of other crops. Here are those photos:
Would you believe that they were actually raising cattle where the water was being pumped to? Here are those photos:
The weird thing was that in places where water wasn’t being pumped to, it was clear that things don’t grow there and here are some of those photos:
Now I don’t know whether it was a crack head, a hippie, or a politician who decided to have taxpayers pay millions and millions of dollars to pump precious California water to a desert area in order to grow crops, but I can assure you that the entire United States of America is not short on growing plenty of crops to feed the entire United States. It is very wasteful to pump water to this area of California in order to try to make things grow. I am actually really curious as to how much water is being lost by evaporation. I would guess that a high percentage of it is, since these water canals aren’t covered and water can freely evaporate. It would make a lot more sense for this area of California to put solar farms to provide energy that can be transmitted to other parts of the United States and have crops shipped to California. The electrical infrastructure is already here where these farms are. If you look in the background of some of the photos you will see power lines. It seems to me that the real water crisis is how the government of California is wasting the water. This is just one more reason why I can’t listen to the state of California’s government telling me to conserve water, while they are being so wasteful. I just can’t take the California drought seriously.
Today I decided to drive down Lombard street in San Francisco, California. This road is known for being the windiest road. I thought it would be a nice novelty since I’m here in San Francisco anyway. In this first picture, I am sitting in traffic waiting to get to Lombard street and I snapped a picture of Alcatraz island in my rear view mirror.
I don’t know how much you’ll actually be able to see of the street because I haven’t even driven down it before and the photos will be taken from inside the vehicle, but I will give it my best shot.
I think the thing that was most surprising about Lombard street was that it was so short. The way they make it sound on t.v. is that it is this big windy street. The street only went 1 city block and it was more of a novelty than anything. Anyway, I can check that off my bucket list.
Since I was in San Francisco today I decided to take some photos from different vantage points of Alcatraz. One perspective was from Pier 39 with a flag flapping in the breeze. Another picture was from Pier 39 again, but over by the boat harbor where the sea lions were resting. The last shot was while I was waiting to go down Lombard street I took a photo of Alcatraz in the rear view mirror. I thought they were interesting perspectives.
Today I went to the Fisherman’s and took some different photos of the different things to see around there. Even though there was fog overhead, I think I got some pretty good shots. Some of the things I got to see where the harbor, San Francisco bay, Alcatraz, trolley cars, the Aquarium and the Bay, sea lions, the Golden Gate bridge, the San Francisco carousel at Pier 39, Pier 35, and some signs for restaurants and gift shops. Here are my photos of my experience.
Drove from Richmond, California to Sausalito, California today. Here are some of the photos that were taken along the way.
Went to the Corvette Diner today. This place was pretty neat because it has a throwback vibe about it and there are plenty of games for both kids and adults to enjoy. It was a fun experience and I snapped the following photos while I was there.
Took a first time trip over to Las Vegas, Nevada. Took photos along the way and took photos of different things while I was there for the one night. Here are those photos.
I drove over to Las Vegas along I-15 and along the way I took some photos to show what the countryside looks like. Here are those photos:
Today I went on an adventure and ended up at Poway. This is a cool little town in the California countryside. It has old style trains, buildings, and has a western feel about it. Here are photos of that experience.
On February 21st, 2015 I went to Hollywood for the 1st time in my life and took some photos of the Hollywood walk of fame stars. I’ve decided that I will make a collection of the star photos that I shoot. Here are photos from the 1st shoot.
I have been really interested in taking photos of the iconic Hollywood sign that sits on the hills outside of Los Angeles, California. While I was in LA, I decided to take photos of the sign from different points of view from around the city. Here are my photos from the different vantage points. Can you spot the Hollywood sign in all of my photos?
Here, I was walking out of a strip mall in San Diego, California and I found these flowers. I thought they were so neat that I decide to take a few photos of them. I don’t know what kind of flower they are, but they are pretty.
I was at Walmart today and I came across this thing I think is a fruit. I’ve never seen one before in my life. It is called a kiwano melon. The interesting thing is that ever new place I go, I always find something new and interesting. This was the thing I found today.
Today I drove down I-10 from Phoenix, Arizona to Temecula, California. Here are photos I took of the countryside along the way. As you can see for yourself that there is a whole lot of nothing. It wasn’t until I turned off at Palm Springs where I started driving up the mountains. Other than that, it was one of the most boring drives I have ever been on.
Here is a collection of photos I took of birds of paradise flowers, while in San Diego, California.
As I was stuck in traffic I was stuck behind this Toyota Voxy minivan and I thought it would be a nice photo to show some Japanese car window art. Here is that photo.