Visiting California

Reasons To Believe's "The Lab" conference is happening this week, and I am attending with my father, so I am currently in California. I also am taking the opportunity to visit Caltech, since it's fairly close by.

This morning, we rode two flights to get to the Ontario airport after a stop in Dallas (Fort Worth). DFW has a really neat tram-like system to move people to the various gates very quickly. After landing in ONT, we picked up a rental car, which turned out to be a completely new Nissan because they didn't have the economy car that we ordered.

Following that, we attempted to visit the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but since we had not signed up for any public tour, we couldn't get in.

Found the way to space!

At the JPL sign

Since we hadn't eaten for a while, we went to look for food. I Googled "caltech cafe" and found mentions of a Red Door Café, so I had Google give me walking directions, but when we arrived at the destination, no café was in sight. So instead, we hurriedly bought burgers from a Jack-in-the-Box before checking in for the Caltech tour.

I am most struck by Caltech's academic rigor and the freedom/responsibility it gives students. The amount of resources it makes available is also exceptionally impressive. I'll definitely be applying there. (The tour included a stop outside the Red Door Café, and it was nowhere near where we had previously been led to.)

With the admissions counselor

Following the Caltech visit, I searched for attractions near Pasadena. Google mentioned a Strawberry Peak, so we put that in the Google Maps app and started going. It turns out that Strawberry Peak is a few miles into the Angeles National Forest, which covers a swath of mountains. The only way through is Highway 2, which winds up and down in elevation and around numerous mountains, which are breathtaking:

 

When Google Maps informed us that we had arrived, we saw nothing special - the actual peak point is not accessible from a road, so it took us to the closest place. Though I couldn't get cell service 3,000 feet above sea level, we continued on Highway 2, planning to travel the entire length of the Forest. It took us several hours, but we did it. The elevation reached almost 8,000 feet at some points.

At Cloud Burst Summit, >7K feet

The Forest is almost entirely devoid of civilization; we only ran across two places that might have running water, and both were closed at the time. Therefore, we were very pleased to run across the Grizzly Café in Wrightwood to the east of the Forest.

After a good meal there, we arrived at the hotel near RTB, where I have typed this post. The convention begins tomorrow morning.