Archives for posts with tag: hike

be sure to rollover ‘notes’ to see photo captions!

Saturday morning, Elaine, Tammy and Jula met up at my place. We packed up Elaine’s car and drove up to Big Bear. We walked around the village and got some old fashioned candy, then had lunch at a great little italian place with a big outdoor seating area. We checked into the hotel and spent awhile sitting in the sun on the patio by the lake, eating Swiss and German chocolate and relaxing. We all took naps then got ready and, after a no-show taxi, went to Oktoberfest.

We ate a lot of the good sauerkraut, drank a mini keg, and had apple strudel. Jula made friends with the band and requested some German songs – the band was loving that she knew all the words – and danced for hours.

Sunday we checked out of the hotel then had a nice picnic brunch by the lake. We loaded the car then went on a nice two-hour hike through the boulder-strewn woods. We saw some great views of the lake and the town. A good relaxing weekend.

be sure to rollover ‘notes’ to see photo captions!

Meghan, Megan and I hiked the Mishe Mokwa trail to Sandstone Peak, the highest point of the Santa Monica Mountains at 3111 ft. It was a gorgeous day, and all of the plants were bursting with flowers. At the summit, we even saw hawks(?) soaring below us!

Terry took me on one of her favorite hikes – the La Jolla Valley at Point Mugu State Park. It’s about 7-8 miles long and takes about 3 hours. At the end you get these sweeping views of the ocean. Beautiful! I also got a photo of a bee at work, and a funnelweb spider in her funnelweb.

I hiked from my apartment to the top of Mt. Hollywood, stopping at the Griffith Observatory and passing through the Berlin Forest on the way. The hike ended up being nine miles – about twice as long as I thought it would be.

One odd thing that happened: I had been sitting at the picnic benches at the top for about ten minutes when another girl walked up with her dog. Suddenly a swarm of insects flew right over and around us! They flew north to south, and it lasted for a full minute or more. We were both really freaked out – wondering if we got caught in some sort of Biblical plague or a horror movie or something!

Mysterious insect swarms aside, the view from the top of Mt. Hollywood is pretty spectactular – downtown, the Observatory from above, Glendale and the rest of the Valley…you can probably see out to the ocean on a clear day.