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Chinese food on Christmas Eve

The timing of our little trip left us in a hotel in Valencia, CA on Christmas Eve. As such, we were left with few Christmas Eve dinner options. Remembering the song, I suggested we go out for Chinese. Thanks to excellent 3G coverage and Yelp, we found Grand Panda in Santa Clarita.

[![Img_0627](http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jcieplinski/7bKLYhg9UcGVyvW5jnq3dYMTOakLpkHAW9yYEzbBEfVMKAAiHXVDMOGJaLW3/IMG_0627.jpg.scaled.500.jpg)](http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jcieplinski/tHi505b09yuMbNbrN68QULqSHwLVrSTEbBXbuQ81YeXvQuvruhcFCLWvZX9x/IMG_0627.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg)
Sorry for the blurry iPhone pic. Low light conditions. 
This place was PACKED on Christmas Eve. And, we later learned, Christmas Day is actually an even busier day for them, typically. 
The food was, in a word, excellent. Who would have thought that a little town like Santa Clarita would have better Chinese food than anything I’ve had in San Francisco? 

Mojave National Preserve

The Mojave National Preserve is an amazing place. We only had time to explore a small part of the park (Hole in the Wall) but just that little portion was fantastic. I highly recommend this park to anyone who is in Southern California. It’s only a few hours from Los Angeles. From highway 40, it doesn’t look like much, but trust me, once you get inside the park, you immediately understand why it was protected.

When you’re traveling 1,400 miles, it’s easy to speed past gems like this one. I’m glad we didn’t this time.

[![Img_0621](http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jcieplinski/6ooCmV8JH3IyyGSVAShrWOn5wUcAGwT5AJERoOzjrnaSFSeLIkThoQ0tTlO6/IMG_0621.jpg.scaled.500.jpg)](http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jcieplinski/3BuK0yn5xrrcYYk6kV9HkVIFc3760QArnBj6yTF47LfSSkfL30AmWLbPnvlQ/IMG_0621.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg) [![Img_0622](http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jcieplinski/WJpsVRmE4DY6UfJRgPnAkCt2wW01V3bjwX74ZoJA1wn4C36BBjitcBLVP3iI/IMG_0622.jpg.scaled.500.jpg)](http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jcieplinski/xwKDgTtXAHNhO71BxAMhh6lbN1xt0rMmp3E4XJDu58ShSxfF7Cm7hFDlsAty/IMG_0622.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg) [![Img_0623](http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jcieplinski/iK0d13stI5V7hIU3bR8LODcpCwluotgpR4a4YKuXbUrgqSLy9A6M57cmnyOc/IMG_0623.jpg.scaled.500.jpg)](http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jcieplinski/kuE3QjSSWfubvupqYhBvImcUdOC95NTCdv9cO0xe3kffKaHUr0Jd1uLK8C84/IMG_0623.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg)
[See the full gallery on Posterous](http://www.blog.joecieplinski.com/mojave-national-preserve-1)

Roberto's in Needles

I wish I had a picture of this place, but I didn’t think to snap one. Best chicken burrito I’ve had in ages. Who would have thought? 
Only 1 review on Yelp so far. Might have to add another one of my own. 
[http://www.yelp.com/biz/robertos-taco-shop-needles](http://www.yelp.com/biz/robertos-taco-shop-needles)
Needles, California is just over the border from Arizona. It’s a strange place that actually made us all feel a little uncomfortable. Google informs me that Sam Kinison died just a few miles from there, in a car wreck in 1992. 

Negative 5

Wanted to go for a morning nature hike before leaving Grand Canyon yesterday. But two things kept us back. 1) It was still pitch dark until about 8 a.m. 2) It was -5 degrees outside.

It’s been a while since I’ve felt -5. Great reminder of why I live in San Francisco. That sort of temperature is just wrong.

Grand Canyon in Winter

[![Img_0613](http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jcieplinski/DHk9YTIOj9ppGVT9CHdEPx3c1zPnHUZfzMXUXoOXFChm5UjgrhRYHIcOSOi6/IMG_0613.jpg.scaled.500.jpg)](http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jcieplinski/anL1md0NJsr0cKwcqnXbYYA0yLSmpqlpZKcxKQ55hgngJ7xe7l9vf7WDnALQ/IMG_0613.jpg.scaled.1000.jpg)
This is the only photo I can post from the Grand Canyon right now. Not because I didn’t take any others. I actually took more than 200. (More on that in a second.) But this one is the only one I thought to take with my iPhone. And I almost forgot to take one, just for the post. So it’s the end of the day, near sunset. Nice enough, but not the best one I got all day, by any means.

My Nikon, being a few years old, doesn’t give me a way to get my photos to the iPhone. Or the cloud. Or anywhere, really, without going to the laptop first. That’s another minor issue with not bringing the laptop on this trip. But I can live with that. I’m sure someone will come up with an accessory—a card reader, or something—for the iPhone soon. In the meantime, I want to edit down the photos to twenty or so before posting them, anyway. Speaking of Grand Canyon photos, I took quite a few today, but not nearly enough to fill one of the 8GB cards I bought. Guess I could have just gotten one of those instead of two. But that’s okay. I can always use the other somewhere else. I highly recommend the Grand Canyon in winter. It’s a little risky, with the snow, and all. But it’s so beautiful. We completely lucked out and got here the day after a snow storm. So the roads were all fine. With the exception of the hotel parking lot, which doesn’t look like it was plowed well at all. Fairly surprising and disappointing, if you ask me. Tomorrow, onward to California.