I spent the first days of 2010 in a place called Big Sur. Big Sur is a coast and forest area between Los Angeles and San Francisco and it's full of happy animals. The first animals I met were a group of grey whales who, like me, were also passing through Big Sur. They were pretty far away, but I could see them blowing whale water high up into the air, and I saw a baby whale jump out of the water. I'm not sure what his name was because he was so far away.

While I was watching the whales, a man next to me said he had seen a California Condor . It's the largest and rarest bird in America and it only eats dead things. I mostly only eat dead things as well, so I think we would have a lot in common.I didn't get to see the condor though, because it had already gone into the trees. It probably had some work to do.

I also saw sea lions, otters, dolphins and homo sapiens.

In the south part of Big Sur is a surf beach called Sand Dollar. I paddled into the waves as the sun was setting. The waves were not so big, 3 or 4 feet, but they were very powerful. The current was pushing me toward a rocky area, so I caught a wave to try to get out of the rocks. I surfed the wave for a few seconds and then turned into it to let it break over my head. I do this a lot with the gentle waves in Los Angeles, and the wave always gives me a friendly pat on the back and head. When the Big Sur wave hit my back it felt like Ichiro Suzuki had whacked me with a baseball bat. I lost my breath for a second and my body felt all stiff.
I'm not sure what I did, but I must have made the ocean very angry for the wave to hit me so hard. I want to apologize to the Sand Dollar beach for whatever I did to make it so mad at me. Please forgive me.

For Halloween, I went to the Death Valley desert of California. It's about 250 miles east of Los Angeles. I stayed high in the mountains so it wasn't so hot, but in the valley it can be 120 degrees. It's to hot for most animals to live a happy life, so I only saw two little rodents while I was there. I tried to make friends with them, but they were too fast.

The bee hives in this picture are actually giant kilns made over 100 years ago. They used to burn pine wood inside these kilns and make charcoal. That's what the sign said, but I still think it is a giant hive, with a giant super bee who lives inside. People are probably trying to keep it secret because they want to keep the honey for themselves.

The nearest town to death valley is called Trona. It's a sulfer mining town, and Americans say it smells bad, but to me it smells like Japanese hot springs. It's a pretty quiet and lonesome town, I wonder what it would be like to grow up there.

I was a gold miner for Halloween and I stayed by myself in an abandoned Death Valley gold mine. I was hoping to meet the ghost of an old gold miner.
Here is a video about it.