Friday Night Lights

On Friday night I joined the wife and the "J" at the Saints - Flashes football game. It was a chilly, foggy night in Fillmore, CA.

If you remember, last season I only went to one Saints game, the Saints - Flashes game, and they lost. This year was a bit different.

The Saints beat the Flashes 41 - 3. I guess my Football Jinx is finally officially over.

Roadtrip 1995 - Part 10: Grand Canyon National Park

I left Flagstaff and headed north to Grand Canyon National Park. I stopped in Tusayan to see if I could get a room. After hopping around the hotels I found one that had a room for $100.00 which was more expensive then most of the rooms I had stayed on this vacation so far but my options were limited and I took the room.

I drove into the park and stopped at the visitor’s center to see if I could pick up a trail map. This is where I found out that the rim shuttle bus service had been shut down for the season two days earlier. D'OH! I had been interested in doing a eight mile rim hike but, without the shuttle, it would turn into an sixteen mile hike and I was not up to that. I would eventually do about 7/8th of the hike with the wife in 1998 which has since become known as the Grand Canyon Death March.

I like the Grand Canyon. I've been there three times. The problem with the Grand Canyon is that it's too grand. There is beauty and awe inspiring vistas everywhere you go. It's impossible to take it all in. This attracts people - lots of people. The traffic along the south rim was terrible. Just as bad as Yellowstone. Traffic leads me straight to frustration.

I decided to try to get away from the crowds a little and do a short hike down into the canyon. I went down the South Kaibab trail a short ways down to Cedar Ridge. This is about a 3 mile round trip hike. The trail switchbacks down the side of the canyon. The way down was easy but the way back up to the car was pretty tough. The views from even this limited foray into the canyon were amazing. There were people on the trail of course but it wasn't too bad. The only traffic that I ran into were some mules I met on the way up.

I returned to the hotel and had some dinner but I was a little restless so I got back in the car and drove back into the park. It was very dark and there were very few lights. I pulled over at one of the observation points and looked into the pitch black canyon. You could make out the lights from campfires on the canyon floor. I found a bench and laid down looking up at the clear skies. The Milky Way was clearly visible. I saw my first shooting star and satellite that night. I thought about the vacation so far. I thought that I still had not had the epiphany that I was hoping to have when I planned this vacation. I had about four more days to go on this vacation and it wasn’t looking good for my life changing inspiration. I went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

The next day I checked out and headed back into the park. My plan was to drive around the east end of the canyon to visit the north rim. Most of the drive was nice. I stopped at several points along the way to take pictures and to ogle the sights. When I turned onto the road that led to the North Rim visitors center I ran smack dab into road work. They were redoing the road and traffic slowed to a crawl. The was only one lane of traffic and each way had to wait their turn. I ended up wasting hours making my way to the north rim. Once I got there I had just enough time to walk out to Bright Angel point to take in the sights (The north side looks just like the south side). I didn’t even go to the lodge which is supposed to have spectacular views. Oh well.

I left the Grand Canyon and headed north towards Bryce Canyon. Bryce Canyon (and Zion) was not on my original itinerary but I had an extra day. I arrived early evening. I checked out the hotels on the Journey Through Time Byway (also known as highway 12) that goes to Bryce Canyon. All the hotels were full. Looking at the map I made my way to the closest town – Panguitch, UT. I checked out the first hotel – full. I noticed a pair of German tourists come in after me. I drove across the street and checked another – full. The Germans were right behind me. This time the Germans and I split up and checked out different hotels – full. I came out, spotted the Germans across the street and shook my head no. They did the same. We went to two more hotels. This time I checked out a little mom & pop hole in the wall – they had rooms. I stepped out the door and waved at the Germans and we both had rooms for the night.

Pictures are here. Next stop: Bryce Canyon and Zion.

A Halloween Confession

I have a confession to make. it was my fault. Before we got married, Halloween was a an evening of turning out all the lights and ignoring the doorbell. When I got married, the wife reintroduced the custom of giving candy to masked kiddies. I wasn't hot for the idea but she did most of the work and I went along with it.

Yesterday we both came home from work tired. We went to Pirates Grub n Grog for dinner and, as we waited for our food (Nachos for her, Tri-Tip Sandwich for me), I asked, "Why don't we just close the blinds, turn off the lights, and ignore the door? I'll take the candy to work to get it out of the house." (I wonder when I became such a crotchety old man?) I expected her answer to be no but to my surprise she said yes. She was tired and had school work to do, and to top it off, our neighbors, who has a cute little boy, moved out of state recently and we no longer could give him candy.

After dinner we got home, turned off the front door light, closed the blinds, and ignored the doorbell. The bell rang about five times that night. That was actually more than the three times it rang last year. I did feel a twinge of guilt but then, it was my suggestion. I think I'm more guilty of corrupting the wife and bringing her over to the darkside with me.

Happy Halloween Everyone!!

Everyone have a safe, fun, stomach filling, sweet-tooth satisfying Halloween!!

What You Get When Art And Engineering Collide

Saturday was the 10th annual Kinetic Sculpture Races at the Ventura harbor. I had never gone so I headed down with my camera to check it out. The kinetic sculptures are whimsically decorated man-powered vehicles. They are raced first in the water, then over the sand, then around an oval course in the Ventura Harbor parking lot, and finally across a mud pit. The weather was overcast and drizzly which kept everything cool and, early on, the crowds small.

I arrived around 10:00 am, parked near the stores and restaurants at the Ventura Harbor Village, and walked down to the headquarters of Channel Island National Park. The race was going to start across the waterway from the headquarters. Since they were not in the water yet, I wandered around the visitors center and looked at the exhibits and the park store. I noticed a guy with a video camera set up videoing the crowds near the starting point. He had his camera and head covered with his jacket. I assumed this was to keep the drizzle off his camera. Then I heard him talking. I figured that he was just narrating his footage but things got a little strange when he started talking in a different voice - he was pretending to interview a spectator watching the race preparation. This was especially weird after the FEMA press conference bru-ha-ha. I should have asked him what he was doing but I decided to just moved along.

When the race finally started I realized that this was going to be a very slow race. If you've ever seen a paddle boat in the water, they don't move very fast. This is especially true when they are home made paddle boats. I could easily out walk most of the vehicles. I decided to walk around and look for some food. I figured I'd have a better chance to see the racers up close when they got on the sand. I stopped at a cafe and ordered a tasty double cheeseburger and had lunch.

After lunch I made my way to the beach in time to see the first two racers on the sand. They weren't moving much faster then they were on water. Many of the vehicles had wide tires which worked good on the sand but it still looked hard to pedal most of the vehicles. The contestants were allowed to make minor modifications when then transitioned from one medium to another. Some added wider treads to their tires when they hit the beach. I walked down to where the racers were coming on shore and took some pictures. The race was very informal and there was little security so you could walk right up to the vehicles and talk with the owners if you wanted to. All the contestants were having fun with their designs. I think the Homeless Piranha was the most interesting. It was also a repeat from last year when it was called the Holly Mackerel.

I headed back down the beach looking for the finish line for the sand segment. Part of the way down the drizzle became a light shower and I decided to go back to the store/restaurant area to get out of the rain. I looked through some stores. I found a hat store (The Harbor Hatter) and found a wide brimmed, packable hat that looked like it would be good on hikes. I made a mental note to add it to my Christmas list. I had been thinking about ice cream (it's rarely far from my thoughts) so I bought an ice cream cone at Coastal Cone Ice Cream & Yogurt and sat outside, ate the ice cream, read a local newspaper, and listened to some kids doing a play on a small gazebo/stage to a small audience.

The showers let up and I went to the mud racing area. The vehicles were being parked nearby in preparation for the laps in the parking lot. This gave me another opportunity to take pictures of the racers. There were about a dozen racers. They varied in complexity. Some of the engineering was impressive. One of them, a two wheeler call Bounce For Glory, was powered by the rider bouncing up and down. It performed amazingly well. The number of wheels varied from two to six with three being a common number. They started the race around the parking lot. The lack of maneuverability of some of the racers resulted in crashes, collisions, and close calls that energized the crowd. Someone near me described it as a Ben Hur chariot race which was a pretty good description. The officials, some dressed in flashy costumes, were pretty loose with the rules as several racers cut corners to bypass traffic jams. One contestant even lost his front wheel and still was allowed to continue racing. The whole race had an air of informality which just made it more relaxed and fun.

The last race was through a mud pit. The fire department came in and helped wet down the track. This is when the crowds got thick. A lot of people showed up for just the last two races. As I waited for the the mud to fly I watched all the dogs in the park - there were quite a few, big ones and small one - and I watched the little kids playing with the automatic soap bubble blowers that were filling the race field with bubbles. Older kids were paying $3.00 to play with a slot car track. I chatted with a guy who was there with his dog. He liked my camera. We talked about making movies with our cameras and I turned him onto the Red Bull Air Races. He said he would have to look into it as he had attended several air races in the past.

The mud races started and all the racers made it through but quite a few had to get in the mud and push. Everyone really had fun watching them get bogged down in the mud. This was the last portion of the race and frankly, I don't even know who won. I don't think that was the purpose of the race. The purpose was to have fun and everyone there was had fun.

This was a fun day. There were several slow parts during the day and I would recommend that if you want to go see this race, show up around 2:00 pm for the parking lot and mud races. They are fast paced and fun to watch. The rest is just too slow. Of course, you can do what I did and do a little window shopping, eat some good food, and enjoy the day out of the house. I took over 150 pictures and the best are here.

Hikius Interruptus

Well, I was planning to hike the Cold Spring Trail up to Montecito Peak in ... well, Montecito. I had been planning the hike all week and planned to extend the hike from 7.5 miles up to 11 or 12 miles by doing both the east and west forks of the Cold Spring trail. I left home early and got to the trailhead at 6:50 am. I got out of the car, walked up to the trail, and read this disappointing notice. The trail was closed due to the fires even though the closest active fire was over 50 miles away. I thought about ignoring the notice and hiking anyway but I'm a law abiding citizen and that idea didn't gain any traction. I drove home all dejected.

I got home and plopped down on the couch and fired up the PVR. I had a couple episodes of Journeyman, a couple Bionic Women, and a Torchwood. After watching a couple minutes of the first Journeyman episodes, I stopped it, deleted it and the other episode, and stopped recording it. After three episodes I had finally lost interest in it. It had potential but it just didn't grab me. I cued up the Bionic Woman and watched both episodes. I like how there are storylines that continue from episode to episode. It feels very similar to the new Battlestar Galactica. I think I will give this show a chance. The last was Torchwood. I like Doctor Who and Turchwood has that cheesy British Sci-Fi feel. That's probably because it is a cheesy British sci-fi show. I'm hooked.

I finished watching my shows by noon so I decided to make the best of the afternoon and went to Hueneme - Ormond Beach, did a walk on the beach, and searched for geocaches. I had walked this beach before. I didn't bring my camera figuring that the hazy marine layer wouldn't make for good pictures. I like this beach. Today, being a workday and being hazy and a little chilly, the beach was nearly deserted. I saw only three fishermen on the 3 mile long beach. The only other company I had were birds including a small flock of pelicans that flew overhead in a graceful 'V' formation. The beach is bracketed by the Pacific Ocean on one side and a sandy swampy strip on the other. The marshy pools are home to various water fowl. I heard a splash in a pool. I thought it might have been a bird diving to get something in the water but it never came up. I guess it was either a fish or the creature from the black lagoon. Not sure which.

The view along the beach was only broken by a power plant. I would complain about the rather ugly power plant but without those power plants all the gadgets that we geeks love and cherish would not exist. What would I do without my laptop, my GPS, my MP3 player - the horror!

Speaking of gadgets, I had loaded 13 geocaches in my GPS. I managed to find 10, did not find 2, and didn't even look for the last one. The caches were hidden quite a ways inland amongst the dunes and along a canal that brought water to the power plant and helped irrigate the nearby fields. I had never walked back here - it was surprisingly nice. At one cache I did a travel bug swap - swapping If I Had a Hammer for the Bear called Orse.

I also used this walk as an opportunity to break-in my new boots. I doubled my socks and my ankles felt pretty good. It was still a little sore but that was because it wasn't totally healed. The added padding of the extra sock helped a lot. I think the boots will work out great.

It was a nice day. A nice 6.72 mile walk on the beach. A nice afternoon of geocaching. It almost made up for not being able to hike.

Roadtrip 1995 - Part 9: Rocky Mountain National Park

I entered Rocky Mountain National Park from the east. I drove up the road until I reached the part of the road closed due to snow. I parked the car and walked past the gate for a while to see the snow but I never saw much up close - I suspect most of the snow was several miles up the road. The snow did make the mountains shine.

I drove back down and did a hike in the Cub Lake and "The Pool". It was a 6.3 mile hike. It was nice enough. When I got back to the car there were some elk grazing nearby.

I spent that evening walking around downtown Estes Park. They have a nice downtown though it is a little touristy. I ended up buying a t-shirt, hat, and a small dreamcatcher which hung from my rear-view mirror for years.

My description of Rocky Mountain National Park and Estes Park are a little lackluster, I know, but I was really getting tired from being on the road for so long - 23 days at this point - and my recollection is a little muted by my mood at the time. I will probably go back there someday to do some better hikes and enjoy what my tired self refused to enjoy the first time.

I'd had enough of Estes Park so the next day, after cleaning the fresh snow of my car, I hit the road and drove across the state of Colorado. The weather was dreary and drizzly most of the day. My original route south was closed due tot he snow so I drove down to Pueblo and took highway 50 west to Montrose. I turned south at this point taking 550 south. This is when the rain started. The 550 crosses several mountain passes on its way south. As the road went up in elevation the rain became sleet which rapidly became snow. The wind was blowing and before I knew it I was driving in a full blown blizzard. It was crazy scary as I couldn't see more then ten feet in any direction and I was sure there was a sharp drop off along one side of the road. I crested the first pass and the weather crested at this point as well. As I head back down the snow became rain once again ... until I hit the next pass where it was snowing again. This pass was lower then the first so it wasn't as bad. The third pass was low enough that the rain never became snow. This was the most harrowing part of my entire trip.

The rain eventually stopped and I made it to Durango just before sundown. I went downtown to look for some food. Most of the stores were closed. It seemed like a nice place. I thought about staying a day to take the train up to Silverton and back but, I was reading Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer, a book about a collision of an asteroid with the Earth, and this piqued my interest in visiting Meteor Crater.

The next morning, after a hearty Denny's breakfast, I drove to Four Corners and did the cheesy tourist thing and walked around all four states before taking route 666 to Gallop. Route 666 has been renumbered since 1995 to 491 to allay the complaints about the religious significance of the number and because it was getting too expensive to replace all the stolen signs - Heh.

After lunch in Gallop I drove through Winslow, AZ made famous by the Eagle's song "Take It Easy" and stopped at Meteor Crater just west of the town. I was surprised to see that it is a privately owned and not run by the park service. I thought I had missed the last guided tour but I had forgotten to change my watch (Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Savings) so I managed to catch the last tour. They don't let you walk around the entire crater and the tour only takes you about a quarter way around. It was still interesting. {A little side story. When I was dating the wife, I called her from a flight to the east coast (My first and only call from an airplane if I recall correctly). She asked me where I was and I looked out the window just in time to see meteor crater.}
I ended up in Flagstaff where I did my laundry in preparation for my next destination: the Grand Canyon. Pictures are here.

Music: Eagle And Dixie Chicks At The Nokia Theater

WARNING: This post may contain Excessive Superlative Expletives. Use extreme caution while reading.

I've been to a few concerts but none of them knocked my socks off like the Eagles. It was crazy amazing or, as the wife described it, crack-head amazing.

We left the house early not knowing how the fires burning in the area would affect the LA traffic. We stopped at an In N Out Burger in Camarillo for some dinner before making our way south. To our relief, as we headed south, the smoke in the air cleared revealing a clear blue sky. Traffic was not nearly as bad as I worried about.

We arrived at the Nokia Theater about 45 minutes before they opened the doors. This theater, which seats 7,100, celebrated it's grand opening last Thursday so everything was still spotless and shiny. We perused the shirt stand and I bought a very cool but very over priced t-shirt.

The doors opened and we made our way to our seats. We were about as far back as you could get but no seat in the theater is more then 210 feet from the stage and there are no obstructions. I keep forgetting to bring my binoculars. There are also two huge screens on either side of the stage guaranteeing a view where ever you are seated.

The warm up band was the Dixie Chicks. Going into this concert I had only heard a smattering of their songs and owned one of their albums, "Taking The Long Way", which I liked very much. They sang a mixture of songs from this album and a mix of older songs including Wide Open Spaces which I recognized. In general I liked them. It always helps to know the music when you go to a concert and my experience with the Dixie Chicks was limited but I enjoyed their hour's worth of music never the less.

The only irritant was the two Dixie Chick fans two rows ahead of us who insisted in standing, dancing, and singing the songs to each other throughout the entire performance. Fortunately the screens let us see most of the action and the sound in the theater was good enough to drown out their accompaniment. I was also seated next to another dancer who always seemed to be dancing at a different tempo then the music being played. I had to duck a few times to avoid her flailing. She also liked to talk to the performers on the stage like they could really hear her. Twilight Zone time, people!

After a brief 20 minute intermission, the Eagles came on stage. They had added three more screens above the stage, showing you even more of the performance. They started off with four songs from their upcoming album "Long Road Out of Eden". One song was sung by each of the band members (Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, and Timmy Schmit). The audience enjoyed this but were rather sedate as no one really knew their new stuff. Then they broke out their old stuff, starting with Hotel California - W*O*W - totally awesome. They went from one great song to another. They even included some of their solo stuff like Henley's Boys Of Summer and Dirty Laundry. The wife and I both agreed that we needed to hear Joe Walsh sing Life's Been Good. AND HE DID!!!! Totally cool awesome a lot ... man! Joe Walsh plays a wicked guitar. Spectacular! Joe Rules! He changed one of the lines to "How bought them Lakers, they're crap without Shaq" - the crowd roared!! How incredibly awesome is that!?! Really BIG awesome. That's how awesome!

Throughout the concert you could hear the murmur of the audience singing along with the band. I would say that 90% of the people in the audience knew the lyrics of every song. This just made everything better - everyone had a great time - I know I did. I knew all the songs and they played all my favorites - Hotel California, Peaceful Easy Feeling, Take It Easy, In The City, and on, and on. Supremely Awesome Extremely Cool ... In The World ... Ever ... A Lot! Yowza!

After the last encore (Take It Easy and Desperado) we made a quick exit. I was surprised that my ears weren't ringing like they usually do after a concert. I attribute it to the better acoustics of the Nokia Theater - they didn't have to play the music as loud as other venues. On the way out, the wife said that this concert ruined us as no other concert would ever measure up. That may be true. The wife placed this concert in her top five. On the drive home (in record time I might add) I thought back to all the concerts I'd been to since my first back in July 1980 (Journey). This concert was probably my best. We turned off the lights at 12:45 am and I fell asleep to the whoosh of the Santa Anna winds outside the window and the echoes of a great performance in my head.

Next concert - yes, there is another one - the B-52s in three weeks.

Hiking Ventura County #34: The Punch Bowls And The Slides

My latest hike is a mix of the old, the new, the good, and the bad. Let's start with the old and the new.

I have hiked to the punch bowls twice before. The first time was in 2003 and the second time was in 2004. Both of these times were pretty much the same. Except for the weather, the hikes were very similar. That was the old. The new is quite a bit different. In early 2005 heavy rains closed highway 150. It was closed in several places including where Santa Paula Creek goes under the highway. The hike up to the punch bowls and the slides follows the Santa Paula Creek. The rain changed the landscape, and this hike, dramatically. If you blindfolded me and plopped me down on this trail and asked me to identify the trail, I would not have been able to recognize it. The creek, once a relatively narrow flowing creek was now a wide expanse of sand, gravel, and rock. The result is, as usual, I lost the trail. But let me start over from the beginning.

The hike starts on the 150 outside the entrance to the Thomas Aquinas College. Hikers are directed around the campus on a paved road. Once you have circled around the campus, you arrive at the entrance to the Ferndale Ranch. The ranch holders are nice enough to allow the passage of hikers through their land. The road passes farm buildings, pastures, and oil wells. At the last set of oil wells at the 1.24 mile point the real trail starts. This is also where I missed the trail. On the old trail the path went on the east side of the creek for awhile before crossing over the other side. I didn't realize that the river crossing was moved much sooner. So I head out on the wrong trail. I saw almost immediately why they had moved the trail. Landslides had blocked several parts of the trail, debris (trees trunks and branches - result of the flash floods) blocked other parts, and river erosion destroyed the trail further on. I was forced to cross the creak a couple times until I came upon a trail marker that got me back on track. Not all the markers were intact. The trail was no longer being maintained and it looked like it. As I walked along the trail I was amazed that I couldn't recognize anything.

I found a geocache along this part of the trail. My GPS was off by quite a bit but I found "Pass the Stuffing!!!" with little difficulty.

On the old hike the trail met up with a fire road that led you to a river crossing before switchbacking up the hill to Big Cone camp. On the new hike the road was a washed out stream bed with ruts up to four feet deep. The river crossing was so undefined that I missed it all together and didn't realize it for about a quarter mile. I grew tired of rock hopping up the creek, checked my GPS and realized that I had passed the crossing and went back. I found the switchback road which was now only a narrow washed out path. I made my way up and ran smack dab into a huge wash a good 50 to 70 feet wide and 10 to 15 feet deep that obliterated the path. Some nice hiker had tied some ropes to make it easier to first climb into the wash and then climb out.

I made it to Big Cone camp. There was a tent up at the camp but nobody around. I assumed that they were at the punch bowl.

I am going to interrupt this description to talk about the bad part of this hike. It started a little while back on the trail and got worse when I arrived to the camp. You see, I had made a major faux pax on this hike. I was wearing a new pair of boots. Brand new, never worn. I have never owned real hiking/backpacking boots before. Have you figured it out yet? The fact is, breaking in a new pair of boots on a seven to eight mile hike is not the most intelligent thing to do. I was pleasantly surprised that the boots did not hurt my toes or heals - they were fine - it was the ankles that got me. More specifically the outside of the right ankle felt like I was trying to saw my foot off. Keep this in mind as I tell you about the rest of the hike.

After walking through the camp I switchbacked back down to Santa Paula creek. At the creek I sat down, took off my boot and wrapped a handkerchief around the ankle and doubled the sock over to provide some extra cushion. It helped ... a tiny bit. At the creek you had the choice left - the punch bowl - or right - the slides. I turned right and took the path that led up to the slides. The path takes you to a point where you can look down on the punch bowl. There was a guy either teaching, lecturing, or preaching to three other people next to the pool's edge. Not far away was a cross erected to remember a girl who fell from the cliff to her death almost ten years ago - sad.

Up here the rock formations, eroded by the water, were really cool. Everything was smooth ands curvy. I found another cache, "Working off the stuffing!!!" where I dropped off the Darth Vader TB that I picked up last week and picked up the If I Had a Hammer... TB. I headed up the creek some more.

There was another cache nearby but I ran into some campers so decided to try to look for it on the way back. The hikers, a dad and two boys, had a poor limping dog with them. The dad said that the dog didn't know how to pace herself and he thought he may have to carry it back. They had been hiking for a couple days. The poor thing limped over to me and sniffed my hand. Her legs were wobbly and she looked exhausted. Poor thing.

I went further up ahead to a second pool hidden in a narrow, cave-like canyon. You could hear people inside enjoying themselves. I climbed up to the top and looked down into the canyon. Pretty cool. I found another cache, "Punch Drunk", here. I sat down and ate some lunch at this point. I looked at my GPS and realized that I probably hadn't reached the turn around point yet but my ankle was killing me and I thought it was time to head back the three miles or so to the car. I explored the second pool before heading back down. I stopped on the way to look for the last cache but, after thirty minutes of looking and not finding it, I gave up frustrated and moved on. I thought about stopping at the punch bowl to soak my ankle but it was getting late and I needed to get back to the car.

There was good on this hike. The scenery was beautiful. I saw deer, birds, and toads. The rock formations around the pools were cool - awesome even.

The hike back went as well as could be expected. There were a lot of people swimming and sliding down the natural slides. I passed several people on the way down. There was a scout troop at Big Cone camp. I was able to actually follow the correct trail on the way back. I reached the car and took off the boots. Sometime on the way back the outside of the left ankle started hurting as well - not as bad as the right. I looked at my right ankle. You could see a spot where the boot must have been rubbing - about an inch long and a quarter inch wide - right on the bone. Around this area was a softball sized bruise. Not very attractive - sorry no pictures. I will have to pad the area the next time I hike. I was wearing thick socks this hike so I will probably double up next time. I never expected to have problems around the ankles. The fact is I really like the boots. This hike had a lot of rock hopping and I know these boots rescued me from several twisted ankles. My feet were tired when I got back from the hike but that's not unexpected with all the rock hopping that I did on this hike. Plus I think my feet and legs hadn't recovered completely from last weeks Cathedral Peak hike. I am not going to give up on the boots yet.

The hike was 7.79 miles long with about 1,325 feet of vertical. Pictures are here.

Smoke Over Oxnard

Some of you may have heard of all the fires raging in southern California. We live in Oxnard, CA and, while we are not threatened by the fires, we are experiencing the smoke. Here are a couple pictures that I took from our front door. The ash is flying and the smell of smoke is everywhere. The wife's and my eyes water everytime we leave the house. It is very Eerie.