"America's Stadium"

This is only a portion of the 90,000 UCLA or USC football fans that you can spend a few hours with! Game day starts several hours before kickoff with tens of thousands of fans taking over a golf course for parking and tailgating. This game happened to be the season opener vs the U of Tennessee Volunteers. The UCLA Bruins pulled off an upset in a thriller!
This was a great way to close up Labor Day weekend and kick off the school season with a bang!
Just imagine a picture perfect holiday evening, the sun is about to set and the blimp is floating in the sky! Then the thunder of the fans chanting …U…C…L…A… UCLA…Fight Fight Fight! A massive roar engulfs the stadium rattling your bones to the core! This is the college sport culture in Los Angeles and throughout the country! The rivalries are epic, the games are more like weekend events where fans from both schools converge and celebrate their school spirit!
The “Tournament of Roses” was a festival started in the 1890’s and has included a football game since 1923. This year the USC Bruins won and hopefully they can compete there next year when the NCAA Football National Championship game will be held here!






The largest crowd to ever watch a game here was 106, 869 fans at the 1973 Rose Bowl, USC v.s. Ohio St. The Rose Bowl has held 5 Super Bowls, Olympic Soccer and Men’s and Woman’s Soccer World Cup,
It was built in 1922 at a cost of $272,000 and is a U.S. National Historic Landmark!
When attending events make sure you come early otherwise you will be parking in the overflow lot 2 miles down the golf course!

The home of thunder in Southern California!

Auto Club Speedway is a 91,000 seat superspeedway that opened in 1997. It’s main track is 2.03 Miles long and banks at 14 degrees at its turns. The fastest lap ever recorded was 241 MPH (388 KPH) by Gil De Ferran in 2000 of CART. Sadly, this is also the track that Greg Moore of Maple Ridge, BC died at during a 1999 CART Series Race. Several improvements were make to the track before the next race as a result.

Down by the Bay...

Nestled along McCovey Cove on San Francisco Bay, this $357 Million privately funded park is a baseball fan’s paradise! The capacity is 41,500 for baseball. The vintage feel of the park makes for a classic baseball experience with many different activity options, especially just beyond the outfield seating area. There is also a café just off center field just above McCovey cove. This is where you can see the boaters waiting for a home run to splash into the bay!

The Santa Monica-Venice Beach Sprint!

One of the best bike/inline/running paths in the world is this amazing stretch along Santa Monica Bay. You have seen this place on TV and in the movies, now it’s time for you to bring your friends to just one of the Highlights on my Sports Tour of Southern California!


Sunscreen, helmet, pads, sunglasses, music, rollerblades…check! This is the sprint to the Venice Pier from Santa Monica! Watch out for sand and slow people, because this glide is one of the best in the world! If you prefer a bike, no problem! There are several places to rent from and rates are very reasonable. Get the exercise out of the way first so you can enjoy the scenery and shops that line this famous stretch of LA Beaches! Plan for at least half a day here including a great Mexican meal at the end of the famous Santa Monica Pier! This is the kind of place that you will dream about!

From The Sky... The Cascade Volcanic Arc!

"The Cascade Volcanic Arc" contains over 20 major volcanoes from Southern British Columbia (Coastal Range) in Canada, south through Washington, Oregon, and Northern California (Cascade Range). This is a section of the Pacific Rim of Fire where the Juan de Fuca Plate is subducting beneath the North American Plate.

Mt Rainier is a 14,411 feet (4,392 M) "stratovolcano" and is a spectacular reminder of the power of Earth's geological forces. It can be seen from much Pugeot Sound and Central Western Washington State. Captain George Vancouver named this volcano after his close friend Rear Admiral Peter Rainier in 1792. It was first climbed in 1870 and it's last eruption was in 1894.




Below Mt Baker rises above the Fraser and Skagit River Valleys. It is 10, 778 ft (3286 M) and is 30 miles (50 KM) east of Bellingham, Washington in Whatcom County. It was originally named "Gran Montaña del Carmelo" by Gonzalo Lopez de Haro in 1790. Captain George Vancouver renamed the mountain for 3rd Lieutenant Joseph Baker of the lead ship on that expedition HMS Discovery who first spotted the mountain on April 30, 1792.

In 1999 the Mt Baker Ski Resort on a nearby peak set the world record for most snowfall in a single season with 95 feet! (2896 cm)

Below the Coastal Mountains surround the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Here you can see parts of Greater Vancouver and the amazing backdrop that it's inhabitants enjoy. If you are lucky enough to fly into Vancouver on a clear day, make sure you have your camera ready!

The Crystal Cathedral, Garden Grove, CA

Built in 1980, this Southern California architectural landmark is home to 3,000 worshipers affiliated with the Reformed Church in America. Fundraising for the construction included donors contributing $500 per pane of glass. 10, 000 panes of silicon glued glass later, you have this incredible place for people to gather and worship. The 273 rank, 5 manual pipe organ produces an incredible array of sound that is world renown!
When visiting the Anaheim area, an hour or so is all you need to see yet another incredible and inspiring place of worship. Believer or not, this is a great place!

Cypress Bowl, West Vancouver, BC

Residents of the Greater Vancouver area are most likely among the luckiest people in the world! For a resident of West or North Vancouver, this is your backyard! For everyone else across the Lower Mainland, hop on the freeway and 45 minutes later, you ascend into this mountain paradise!


Cypress Bowl offers snowshoeing, cross country/downhill skiing, snowboarding tubing and some incredible sightseeing. Home of freestyle skiing and snowboarding at the 2010 Winter Olympics, this is by far the North Shore Mountains' most dynamic ski resort!
Mt Strachan (1400 m) and Black Mtn (1200 m) provide some of the most scenic ski runs anywhere in the world! This is one of the few places on earth that you can ski such a variety of terrain. An added bonus is the ability to ski during the day, during sunset and at night above the glittering metropolis of Vancouver!



This series of photos was taken above low cloud which occurs several times a ski season. As you can see it is like being on a lake of clouds in the heavens! Skiing at top speed with this as a backdrop is a rush that becomes addictive! Cypress Mountain is yet another reason why Vancouver attracts people from all over the world!