Recently our weekends have been lose by but very busy. Fortunately, a couple of weekends ago, I managed to get in the water during the week so the weekend was slightly less stressful. I basically got overly stressed out in the city so I just took off to the ocean which was a very good plan. The evening was pretty high tide but I found a fun spot anyway and made the most of kind of creepy overly high tide night bodyboarding. Even though I had to work on Friday, we made the most of the remaining two weekend days...
Saturday morning, Josh and I drove over to the South Bay for a Surfrider Foundation beach cleanup. By the time we actually got to the SF tent, we were an hour late, but they gave us garbage bags and gloves anyway. To make it more fun and a good workout, we decided to go south onto the rocky "beach" section and spent a couple of hours rock hopping, scrambling, and picking up trash. It was a sunny, warm day and very much worth the drive. The surf was tiny though so I didn't end up getting in the water. Instead, we headed to one of my favorite deli's and I ruined Josh's sometimes taste for In n Out burgers when he had one of their amazing veggie burgers. Yes, the veggie burger beat out the hamburger. It didn't hurt that we sat at the top of a cliff watching boats go by in a very uncrowded spot, whereas most In n Outs are in urban areas. (Ick!) Finally, we decided to check out Ports O Call for taffy...and did some shopping too. The full South Bay / Long Beach tour. Josh wasn't so happy when I had to take his picture next to the dead fish at the fish market at Ports O Call though.
Eventually, we headed back to Josh's house...for about an hour...before the Banff Film Festival World Tour showing in Santa Monica. Back onto the highway...we pretty quickly made it to the film festival showing. Some of the films were AWESOME. Finding Farley was an hour long but completely worth the hour. It reminded me a TON of being a kid, although the people in the movie were a bit more adventurous with the scale of their trip to put it mildly. We also got to see Alex Honnold's amazing free solo of half dome in Yosemite called "Alone on the Wall." There were a couple of other very worthwhile films also...great choices!! I DEFINITELY want to take time to go see this next year.
Sunday was a climbing day. We headed over to Malibu Creek State Park, but it was just waaay too crowded. Before we even parked the car, we turned around and drove to the less crowded Echo Cliffs. We did a bunch of easier climbs, just for fun.
We did see one person get dropped right next to us, so that was rather exciting. Yet another belayer who learns the hard way how crucial it is to belay well. I managed to lead a climb which was nice and followed Josh on some other fun ones. In the end, I think Josh managed about 4 climbs which is pretty good for us! Especially since we had to take off early so I could get to church, as usual.
The hike there and back was beautiful due to the abundance of rain (by LA standards) we've been having. All kinds of plants were blooming. The trail is a great workout too.
We both really liked the style of climbing at Echo, so we plan to be back this summer on the days its not too hot. I am NOT a fan of climbing or hiking to climbing in hot weather.
However, I am a huge fan of hiking on relatively empty single track trail with little blue flowers lining the path and white/blue flower bushes and trees everywhere. Southern California after rain is a whole new experience!!
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