HAWAII

Hawaiian archipelago is a string of islands and reefs of 3300 kilometers long that form a broad are in the mid-pacific. Hawaii has eight main islands. These islands were created from massive volcanic eruptions.  California also has its share of volcanoes, however its islands were not created by volcano eruptions like those islands in Hawaii. The Channel Islands of California are a chain of eight islands located in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California along the Santa Barbara Channel in the United States of America. Five of the islands are part of the Channel Islands National Park.

The eight islands are split among the jurisdictions of three separate California counties: Santa Barbara County (four), Ventura County (two) and Los Angeles County (two). The islands are divided into two groups — the Northern Channel Islands and the Southern Channel Islands. The four Northern Islands used to be a single landmass known as Santa Rosae.

The archipelago extends for 160 miles (257.51 kilometers) between San Miguel Island in the north and San Clemente Island in the south. Together, the islands’ land area totals 221,331 acres (89,569 ha), or about 346 square miles (900 km²).

Five of the islands (San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa, and Santa Barbara) were made into the Channel Islands National Park in 1980. The Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary encompasses the waters six nautical miles (11 kilometers) off Anacapa, Santa Cruz, San Miguel and Santa Barbara Islands.

Santa Catalina Island is the only one of the eight islands with a significant permanent civilian settlement—the resort city of Avalon, California, and the unincorporated town of Two Harbors.

The Channel Islands at low elevations are virtually frost-free and constitute one of the few such areas in the 48 contiguous US states. It never snows except rarely on higher tops of mountains.

info taken from Wikipedia

I hope you have enjoyed looking at my blog and discover some of the beauties of our GOLDEN STATE   

 CALIFORNIA

THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST

The north pacific coast; it is cold, clear mountain streams. The destination: a rugged, unused coastline where precipitous, fog-enshrouded cliffs rise out of pounding surf. Mountains are visible from the distance, covered with snow. Tall needleleaf evergreens cover the land between with a mantle of green. Cities, where they exist, give the impression that they are new. This is America's North Pacific Coast, mostly called, the Pacific Northwest. The coastal zone that stretches from northern California through coastal Canada to southern Alaska. Mount McKinnely has 6200 feet in elevation, making it the highest peak in North America. California's highest peak is Mount Whitney which has 14,505 feet in elevation. It is located at the boundary between California's Inyo and Tulare counties, just 84.6 miles (136.2 km) west-northwest of the lowest point in North America at Badwater in Death Valley National Park (282 feet (86 m) below sea level). In northern CA and southern Oregon, the Klamath Mountains offer is a product of Plesistoscene glaciation and Stream erosion.

MOUNT WHITNEY

Level III ecoregions in the Pacific Northwest. The Klamath Mountains (78) borders the Coast Range (1), Willamette Valley (3), Cascades (4), Sierra Nevada (5), Southern and Central California Chaparral and Oak Woodlands (6), and Eastern Cascades Slopes and Foothills (9) ecoregions.

CALIFORNIA

CALIFORNIA, our beautiful state. Well, this is the state I chose to do my web page on; for many reasons, first of all I love nature, and nice climates. That itself describes our beautiful California, from volcanoes, beaches, mountains and deserts, from hot deserted weather to snow up in the mountains, beach breeze, and waterfalls at our different national forested areas. CALIFORNIA HAS FOUR DIFFERENT REGIONS. CALIFORNIA, EMPTY INTERIOR, SOUTHWEST BOARDER AREA AND THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST REGION.
CALIFORNIA'S VOLCANOES
http://www.nationalatlas.gov/dynamic/dyn_vol-ca.html

map of California's volcanoes

CALIFORNIA'S BEACHES
http://www.beachcalifornia.com/sitelist.html



CALIFORNIA MOUNTAINS

http://www.parks.ca.gov/

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

CALIFORNIA DESERTS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deserts_of_California

DEATH VALLEY DUNES LOOKING TOWARDS NEVADA; IT IS THE LOWEST ELEVATION POINT IN CALIFORNIA.

THE SOUTHWEST BORDER AREA: TRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

The southwest border area is located in the southern part of the United States. From the Southern California Pacific coast to the Texas Gulf Coast, North of the Rio Grande. The southwest parallels the US-Mexico border. The textbook Regional landscapes of the United States and Canada mentions the cultural impact of Indian and Spanish groups in the regional landscapes is obvious in many aspects. For example Spanish place names are abundant, especially along the Rio Grande in Texas, New Mexico and in the coastal southern California. A great number of California's cities and streets have Spanish names as well. I live in the city of Santa Paula, which has a great Hispanic population. According to the 2000 US census, there were 28,598 people, 8,137 households, and 6,435 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,400.4/km² (6,214.6/mi²). There were 8,341 housing units at an average density of 700.1/km² (1,812.6/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 10.2% White, 0.41% African American, 1.02% Native American, 0.70% Asian, 0.19% Pacific Islander, .37% from other races, and 4.68% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 71.2% of the population.^[2]

I love my neighborhood and the community I live in. Spanish is spoken everywhere you go, Mexican markets and bakeries are abundant as well. I am proud to be part of the "melting pot" to live in the United States but am also proud of my Mexican-Spanish roots. The book mentions that the Southwest Hispanic communities were founded more than 200 years before the Anglos started settling in the region during the early nineteent century. YeeeaaaaH am another immigrant not an invader.

 THE SOUTHWEST BORDER AREA............

The melting pot theory of ethnic relations, which sees American identity as centered upon the acculturation or assimilation and the intermarriage of white immigrant groups, has been analyzed by the emerging academic field of whiteness studies. This discipline examines the 'social construction of whiteness' and highlights the changing ways in which whiteness has been normative to American national identity from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.

THE EMPTY INTERIOR

The Empty Interior
By Stephen S. Birdsall and John Florin

Stretching from the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains westward to the Sierra Nevada of California, to the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest and into Alaska, is the largest area of sparse population in America. Its low average population density is the key identifying feature of this region. Indeed, there is much variation in other elements of the territory's geography. Portions have rugged terrain interspersed with a series of plateaus, many of which contain extensive flat areas. Annual precipitation ranges from more than 125 centimeters in northern Idaho to less than 25 centimeters in the plateau country. The population of the region is mostly of European origin, although Hispanic-Americans and American Indians are found in significant proportions in the south. Irrigated agriculture is important in some areas, as is ranching, whereas in other areas, lumbering, tourism, and mining are dominant.

SIERRA NEVADA CALIFORNIA

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK PART OF THE SIERRA NEVADA

IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO ENCOUNTEER WITH NATURE.

 

THE GREAT PLAINS AND PRAIRIES

The great plains extends form Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada thru all the mid section of the United States. The states are parts of Montana, all North Dakota, and South Dakota, parts of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and most of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and a great part of Texas.

The book mentions that the earliest large-scale wind farms were erected in California, but Texas has far exceeded California's wind power capacity. Late 2007, wind power capacities in place or under construction in Texas alone was greater than the combined equivalent capacities in California, Oregon, and Washington.  Here is a link of the California wind energy.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/wind/overview.html