Thursday, January 20, 2022

California Journal- A Few More Pages

 Hi everyone. I hope your week is going well.

Today I have some more pages and photos from my California trip journal. My book is getting thick and hard to lay flat, so please ignore my not-so-perfectly-flat-page photos.

This first photo is a left over page from my visit to Palm Springs. I cut this image out of a travel brochure. These 2 people with their sunglassed poodle represent the vintage movie star glamour  of this desert city. I can't say it looks much like my husband or myself though, even if we are vintage. Smile.


In case you're wondering why there are stars on the sidewalk, Palm Springs has its own walk of stars, so I added some stickers to represent them.
I am linking this page up to Art Journal Journey for this month's Let's Face It challenge. 

Next we're onto our drive from the desert back out to the coast. 


Whoops, I forgot to take a finished view of this next page. What the underside of the tag says is that we turned off in San Bernadino and drove up through the National Forest that wound through the mountains.


I used this stencil (repeating it several times) in the next page because that's how it felt to drive on those switchback roads up into the mountains. All of a sudden you would come out of the forest onto a beautiful view, and then you would wind through the forest some more.


These photos are not in my travel journal, but I'll share them here. This is the route we took up through the mountains, past Big Bear and Arrowhead lakes.









These signs were at the picnic area where we stopped for lunch. Even though we passed through a couple of communities, we didn't see anyplace we wanted to eat. That was OK as we had lunch food in the cooler.



On our way out of the National Forest we drove through the northernmost corner of LA County. This was the area of the 2020 Bobcat fire.  I remember seeing images of it on the news. What was amazing was how many of the homes the firefighters and others had been able to save. Many of those people had signs out thanking the firefighters, which I included in my sketch page of my journal.



Once we got out of the mountains we came out onto this flat area. 


Then it was over the Coastal Range, and into Ventura County. When we got to our hotel, we were totally fogged in.


On this page I used another brochure. This one has an inside harbor map where I could mark info about our trip.
This all happened on Monday. On Tuesday we were off to Channel Island National Park, and I will share my journal pages another time.

Thanks so much for visiting.







9 comments:

kathyinozarks said...

Good morning, brrr it is very cold and windy here still-loving your travel journal pages Erika

Angie's Recipes said...

Your journal pages are so pretty. Break out your shell is my favourite!

Jeanie said...

I love how you integrated your journal and photos here, Erika. Both beautiful in their own ways. I like how you used the tags for writing things and some of the seemingly small "memories" (Traffic flow comes to mind!) are ones that will stick with you. Very clever and a fun way to remember.

Divers and Sundry said...

Wow! That landscape! Your photos are breathtaking!

craftytrog said...

Great pages and photos Erika. Wonderful memories of your trip.
Hope you're having a good week.
Alison

Pooja Mahimkar said...

Your journal is such an inspiration

Neet said...

You brought a tear to my eye with the final posting as I spent many a happy hour at Ventura with my friend before she passed. it was her favourite place to go to so we took her every year for about 12 years. No fog when we were there but i did bring two HUGE fir cones home (sh!) to England from across the track by the beach.
What a great journal you have there with your lovely memories - mind you I would have wanted to stay safe in the car with the bear and lion bits.
Love the journal page at the top - all sunshine - but I can not imagine your husband wearing white knee socks and pink shoes. Definitely not you two - with a sunglass wearing poodle?
Hugs, Neet xx

Meggymay said...

I loved the first journal page and this post Erika. I can imagine the glances you may have got from other folk had you been dressed like that first couple.
The photos were super as well.
Yvonne xx

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

This is wonderful. When I was on the beach one year in San Diego, the fog rolled in like a wave. It was the thickest fog I have ever seen and the experience was practically overwhelming.

I especially like the Bobcat Fire thank you page. It is beautiful and heart warming.

I got a laugh out of the Palm Springs entry. I loved the poodle and the way the people in the background were staring at the couple. It was a great entry for your theme at AJJ, too.