Starling Travel

Every time we go to San Diego, we make sure we set aside time to visit Leucadia Sushi Bar. The best feature of the place is the conveyor belt and constant stream of sushi. I filmed a little clip of it back in 2007:

Download this video for your iPod

You pay based on plate prices. There is a price for each plate, you choose a plate from the conveyor belt and stack up the plates you eat. When it comes time to pay, they count up your plates and charge you for each one. Different colored plates indicate different prices.

At the end, I always spend less on sushi here than I do at any other sushi bar, even though I eat so much!

We LOVE Leucadia Sushi Bar and have a pet name for it: Sushi-Go-Round! I can’t wait to go back to California to eat there again!

Where: 996 N.Coast Hwy 101, Encinitas, CA 92024
Phone Number: (760)635-9312

Business Hours:
Closed on Monday Lunch: 11:30a.m.- 2:00p.m. (tue - fri)
Dinner:: 5:00p.m.- 9:00p.m. (tue - thu, sun) 5:00p.m. - 9:30p.m. (fri & sat)

Click any of the photos in this post to view the large photo (800 x 600) in a separate window.

There’s one sure way to spot a bear at Yellowstone National Park: look for a long line of cars parked at the side of one of the roads through the park. A bear that can be seen from the road will always draw a crowd.

Last time we saw a bear at Yellowstone, it was about a hundred yards away in the woods, and there was no way to get a good photo. Some fellow tourists demonstrated their stupidity by walking much closer, but we stayed by the road and contented ourselves with some blurry photos.

This time we were lucky—the line of cars on the West Yellowstone-Madison road led us to two black bears grizzly bears, much closer to the road. They were across the river, which prevented any tourists from risking their lives. We were able to set up tripods and get a couple of decent pictures this time, along with Laura’s video.

These appear to be Grizzly Bears, although we thought they were on the small side. Two of them were feeding on something (Bugs in a rotting log? A dead animal?) and they parted ways and walked in opposite directions along the river as we approached.

Update 05-02-07: I’ve added this map to show you approximately where we saw the bears. They were midway between the West Entrance and Madison Junction.

Update 05-04-07: I initially identified these as black bears, but I’m pretty sure they are grizzlies. Learn how to tell the difference.

St. Michael’s Parish Church

This photo was taken by archangel_raphael and posted to Flickr. You can see all his photos here:

• archangel_raphael’s photos on Flickr

The Smithsonian Magazine has posted the finalists for their photography contest. You can see the entries for the travel category here:

• The 4th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest - Travel

I always feel a sense of pride when something from Utah is featured. Here is “Sunrise in Canyonlands National Park” by Diane Kroupa from St. Louis, MO. Canyonlands National Park is in Southern Utah near Moab.

Yes, my state is an exotic locale on par with worshippers in Taiwan and Buddhist photographers. Head on over the the Smithsonian website and see the rest of the beautiful photography submitted.

Every time we visit San Diego, we spend a day at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, a huge wildlife preserve 35 miles north of the Zoo. This park is like the opposite of a zoo—the animals are roaming through wide open spaces, while humans are confined to limited fenced areas.

Every year in spring they have thousands of butterflies in the Hidden Jungle, a large walk-through greenhouse. It’s certainly the most butterflies we’ve ever seen in one place—they even land on people. Here are a few of the many photos we took of these beautiful insects.

The annual Butterflies event ended May 7th. Be sure to catch it next year—it’s well worth waiting in line.

• Address: 15500 San Pasqual Valley Road, Escondido, CA
• Park Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m

You are looking at Rhona Quarm and Gavin McDonald. Mike and I met them on our drive to Disneyland. We were gassing up the Beetle in Barstow, California and the two of them had parked their bikes nearby. I noticed their bikes and left Mike pumping gas and walked over to them to hear their story.

They are touring the world on their bicycles. They left their hometown, Perth, Scotland in May of 2005, which means they have been on the road for almost a year. They have bicycled with this flag of Scotland during the entire trip. The tear in the upper right hand corner is where they encountered a bull in India, but the flag has survived.

I asked them how it was to bicycle for that long and Gavin said the most profound thing:

“You can go a long way with bad legs and a good head.”

They are travelling from Perth, Scotland to Perth, Australia and finally ending their journey in Perth, Canada. They aren’t insane. They are living their dream to travel the world on bicycles and they are doing it for charity. You can find out more about their journey at their website.

• Perth2Perth.org - Rhona and Gavin cycle 18000 miles around the world

After talking to Rhona and Gavin, my little drive to Disneyland didn’t seem like such a big adventure anymore. Mike and I excitedly talked about the bike rides we could take around our hometown and the world seemed bigger and friendlier after we said goodbye to them.

At the Sloan Exit just 12 miles South of Las Vegas, sits three and a half acres of pottery called Pottery and Patio World. You can see it from the I-15 Freeway. The colorful pottery beckons to me every time we drive past it. I don’t actually need any pottery or statuary, but it looked so beautiful from the freeway that we stopped this time. It was even more impressive close-up.

We talked to the manager, Missy, and she said that all their pottery is Asian. They purchase it from China, Malaysia and Vietnam. One of the benefits of this pottery is that it’s fired instead of baked, which makes it last far longer. Their fountains and some of their statuary are concrete. Most importantly, their prices were very reasonable.

Here is a slideshow of the beauty that we saw when we visited Pottery & Patio World a couple of days ago:

I found this place to be incredibly relaxing. The color-coded pots were lined up in military rows. The fountains gurgled and bubbled at me. The wind was strong that day and kept whipping my hair into the photographs. Missy said she loves it here when the temperature is 100° F, but the day we were there, it was a cool 55° F day. I contemplated spending the day there, among the fired pots, writing and watching the random tourist drop by. Instead, I ran off to do other things in Las Vegas, but I was calmer and happier because of my time I spent there.

Here is a link to Pottery & Patio World on Google Maps:

• Google Local - Sloan, Nevada

Last month Laura posted a slideshow of photos we took in September of Eats, Nevada—the remains of a cabin-style roadside motel at I-15 exit 25, about 12 miles south of Las Vegas. We’re in the area again, and discovered that the dilapidated cabins have been torn down…

September 3, 2005:

January 5, 2006:

It took us a while to verify that this is the same place, since they did a very thorough clean-up job—even the power lines that used to feed the site are gone—but you can see how the mountains match up in the photos above, and we found a freshly filled-in hole where the signs shown in our slideshow used to be.

For now, seeing this view is very strange, as if the desert has reclaimed the area from civilization in just a couple of months. I’m sure some nondescript condos will appear in a year or so, and there will be nothing to show that the cabins ever existed. Granted, they were falling apart and probably quite dangerous, but we’ll miss them.