Settling in, so of course I buy some camping/hiking gear.

Settling into San Marcos / San Diego.  Just dropped a bundle at REI (US camping co-op) on a new pack Osprey Atmos 65 (http://www.ospreypacks.com/en/product/mens/atmos_65) for roughly the same price as you'd get them in Oz.  I also bought a water filter, another katydyn hiker, because I envisage myself doing some overnighters here when it gets cooler.

The place is a savannah.  So dry.  I got a 3l hydration pack and another 1l Nalgene, just because I think I'll need 5l here where I could get away with 2l in around Sydney.  The sun is hotter here, too, presumably Sydney's *far* higher humidity filters some of it out.  I may actually need sunscreen for the first time since I was a kid, and maybe even a hat.

I'm considering one of two possibe day hikes tomorrow (which will be Sunday here):

Mt Woodson, which is reputed to be a bit hard: http://alltrails.com/trail/us/california/mt-woodson-via-lake-poway-trail
or
Hollenbeck Canyon, which is a walk in the park http://www.everytrail.com/guide/hollenbeck-canyon

I'll probably go for the wimpy one, and tell myself I've got to leave something for a challenge, or I need to acclimatise more.

There's a national park not too far from here, Cleveland National Forest, which looks to be nice, and has some wildernessy areas. I'll aim to do that soonish, as an overnighter.

The good thing about this place is that you really don't need a tent.  It rains about twice a year (though like the song says, man it pours) so if you can avoid those two days, a fly is all you need.  There's not much vegetation, certainly nothing like Sydney bush, so you can pack your stuff outside the pack, which is why I'm OK with going down to 65l pack.

The specific challenges here are that it's a savannah.  It's *so* dry, makes Sydney look lush.  Additional risk elements are mountain lions and rattlesnakes.  I'm a bit worried about the former - they apparently do attack and maul people, but the latter just sound like tiger snakes with neon advertising signs.

After Cleveland, I really have a hankering to do some of the deserts, maybe here http://www.nps.gov/jotr/index.htm ... despite the fact U2 did an album named for the vegetation (Eno probably produced it, so that's ok.)