Pictures of China Night ‘06. ISO set to 1600, but the lighting was too poor, still didn’t get too many sharp shots. And my Canon 75-300 USM III is a little crappy on the 300 end. Color noise is too much even for ISO 1600. Anyway, can’t afford a telephoto fast lens

It was a fun event though. It’s my 6th China Night here at OSU but the first time to sit down and watch the program and eat, although I was walking around the whole ballroom and taking pictures Here is the proof how yummy the foods were:

I came across WPG2 the other day and thought it’s nice. So I gave it a try. It enables me to post images from gallery2. I used to do this by copying and pasting URLs and image source URIs, which is tedious. Another big problem with my old approach is I need to modify all posts once my gallery is moved (which will happen soon, I think).

The settings are a little tricky and not too well documented. Nevertheless, I figured it all out:

Refer to this page for adding photos to blog entries. Basically, it enables the wpg2 tag and you can use the album/picture name as the content. For example, plants/tulip2005/IMG_0918.JPG, and it would look like this:

Day 10. Jan 3rd, on the road.

Nothing really exciting. Drove from Kingman to Bay Area. Traffic was light, so we arrived San Jose very early. Did some shopping and then had a dinner with friends.

Day 11. Jan 4th, San Francisco to home.

We took off from San Mateo very early and arrived SF before sun rise. It was a foggy day. Some pictures taken from Treasure Island turn to be not bad.

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Alcatraz is very faint, Golden Gate Bridge is almost invisible. We strolled around in China town & Fisherman’s Wharf for a while, drove down from Lombard then left for home. We had a nice picture of Shasta on our way home.

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We arrived home at around 9:30. This concludes our trip of 3800 miles.

Day 8. Jan 1st, Supai Village.

For the 3rd time, we stayed at that motel in Williams. We watched that big ball lowering at Time Square on the TV on new year’s eve, packed and went to sleep. Our first breakfast of 2006 begins with a pint of Hagan Daaz!

After 3 hours of driving, we arrived Hualapai hilltop, where the trail to Supai village begins. The road condition was super good, I was able to maintain 70 MPH for most of the time. My worries about the road was totally unnecessary. We hit the trail at about 11:30. We were told by a ranger at Grand Canyon NP that this trail is a whole lot easier than that to the Canyon. It so proved. A set of switchbacks take us to a section in a canyon, which is relatively flat. The scene in the canyon reminds me of Devil’s Garden in Arches NP of Utah. The trail is not as well maintained as those in national parks. There is basically no mile post. The first one is at 6 miles, where the Havasu river can be heard and seen. The rest of the canyon is pretty dry. It’s amazing that there is such a big creek flows on such a dry land. It becomes more open and more trees can be seen. After another 2 miles, we came to the first house of the village. At that moment, all I think of is Shangri La.

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There is a general store at the entrance of the village, then more buildings can be seen. The houses are very much like those of the outside world, only a little more rural. But there is no paved road, only dirt trials. Kids can be seen playing around and livestocks are behind fences. Almost every household has some horses or cows. The tourist office was closed when we got there (it’s supposed to close at 5pm, but well, it’s there cold season anyway). We asked directions to the campground from some villagers. They all can speak fluent English, with some accent. People are very friendly and open. We met a bunch of people celebrating new year by drinking whisky and firing a rifle in the canyon. The sound echoes in the canyon. They seemed very happy to hear that we came from China to visit Supai.

There is a grocery store next to the post office (which is closed on new year’s day). The store seems to have a lot of things, including fresh vegetables and all kinds of foods. We bought a soda and a head of lettuce. The prices are totally acceptable, considering the difficult transportation.

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After we passed the store, we saw the Havasupai school and even a Christian church! We passed the village and headed for the campground. An old dog followed us all the way. There are many dogs in the village and they all like to follow passer-bys. But only this one followed us all the way.

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About 1.5 miles out of the village, along the river, we came to Havasu falls, THE highlight of the trip. The waterfall drops more than 100 feet on the cliff. I was totally speechless at the first scene of the waterfall! The color and grandeur were unbelievable. The fall along with the big pool under it make a spectacular scene. The camera is so unable to capture the beauty!

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Continue on the trail for another 15 minutes, we arrived at the campground. It’s a huge campground, capable of hosting 250 people. But we were the only ones that night, well, except the dog who followed us there and wouldn’t want to go home. We set out camp right next to the river.

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Day 9. Jan 2nd

We had a very good night of sleep and woke up late. It was a cloudy day, not too much sunshine, perfect for taking pictures of waters. A stroll along the river was very pleasant.

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We walked for 20 minutes to Mooney falls, 196 feet in height (higher than Niagara). The trail is very steep and slippery on the way down here. There is a section where we have to descent into a cave, followed by a section on the cliff, with chains and ladders. We carefully lowered ourselves down by hanging on the chains.

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We returned from Mooney falls back to the campground. The dog was still there. We were very upset to see that he ransacked our garbage bag, leaving all trashes on the ground! I guess he was very hungry, looking for foods. We decided that we really had to do something. I tried some dried fruits and nuts, as well as energy bars, but he wouldn’t take them. We had to open two cans of eel to feed him. He immediately devoured them and licked the can as clean as washed. I guess he was still hungry. But that’s all meat we had left.

We broke camp and headed back. On our way back, we stopped at Havasu falls again and took some pictures.

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Back in the village, we saw a helicopter transporting stuffs to the store:

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Looks like they are sodas and pet foods :

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After paying the entrance and camping fee, we left the village at around 2. The hike back wasn’t too tough since the elevation gain is not too much. We managed to get to the parking lot exactly when the sun sets at 5:30. It was very windy at the hilltop. After another 2.5 hours of driving, we arrived Kingman and had a nice dinner at a Thai restaurant.

Day 6. Dec 30th, Sedona

We got up and headed to Sedona on Highway 89. This is the most boring day of the trip. There is really nothing interesting in Sedona. The only highlights of the day is a small town called Jerome, built on a sheer cliff. The road winds up the cliff and the town is laid along the road. The vertical expansion of the town is almost as big as its horizontal extent. The roads remind me of some scenes in Need For Speed. The sunset is extremely beautiful when we were headed to Prescott valley after we left Jerome.

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After spending 3 days skiing at Mt Bachelor, we packed in a hurry and left for Arizona. It’s a 11-day trip.

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